Abstract
BackgroundThe gender gap remains a major impediment in the path towards equality and it is especially wide in low-income countries. Up to the early 2000s, many studies documented extensive inequalities in China: girls had poorer health, less nutrition and less education than their male counterparts. The goal of this study is to examine whether the gender gap persists, given that China is now making the transition into the ranks of upper-middle income countries. We consider educational outcomes, mental and physical health status, as well as non-cognitive outcomes.MethodsWe draw on a dataset containing 69,565 observations constructed by combining data from 7 different school-level surveys spanning 5 provinces. The surveys were all conducted by the authors between 2008 and 2013 using uniform survey instruments and data collection protocols in randomly selected schools across western provinces in rural China. The sample children range in age from 9 to 14 years (with 79 % of the sample being aged 10 to 12). Our analysis compares rural girls with rural boys in terms of 13 different indicators.ResultsWith the exception of anemia rates, the health outcomes of girls are equal to those of boys. Girls and boys are statistically identical in terms of weight-for-age, height-for-age, and prevalence of intestinal worm infections. Girls performed better than boys on five of six cognitive and educational performance indicators. Girls performed worse than boys on all mental health indicators. All estimates are robust to the inclusion of different age ranges, controlling for the level of household assets, ethnic minority status, as well as the addition of provincial dummies.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that with the exception of non-cognitive outcomes, anemia and standardized math test scores, the gender gap in our study areas in China appears to be diminishing.
Highlights
The gender gap remains a major impediment in the path towards equality and it is especially wide in low-income countries
We find that the regression results are largely in line with the descriptive results in our paper, indicating that the individual, family and geographical differences between girls and boys do not affect the descriptive findings on the gender gap
We find that excluding the students aged under 10 and over 12 almost does not change the estimated gender gap
Summary
The gender gap remains a major impediment in the path towards equality and it is especially wide in low-income countries. Up to the early 2000s, many studies documented extensive inequalities in China: girls had poorer health, less nutrition and less education than their male counterparts. The goal of this study is to examine whether the gender gap persists, given that China is making the transition into the ranks of upper-middle income countries. Empirical evidence has shown that girls in low-income countries often have worse health outcomes than their male counterparts. Excessive female mortality at young ages has been well documented in low-income countries such as India [1,2,3,4], China [5,6,7,8], Pakistan [9], and Bangladesh [10]. Girls have been shown to have worse nutrition and education outcomes. Among eighth grade students in Nepal, boys have higher mean math test scores compared with girls (13.1 versus 10.1) [17]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
