Female Education and Gender Inequality - A study of Indian children´s enrolment and future outcomes

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to investigate the educational gender inequality and the differences among boys’ and girls’ educational attainment and outcomes in India. India is considered to be the most fast growing economy in the world but there are still major gaps between men and women, already apparent at young ages. Son preferences in Indian families has led to low female literacy rates compared to male where girls have less opportunities to attend school. By using panel data on 3,000 children in four different periods of time, we estimate the effect of a negative income shock on enrolment rate for boys and girls in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The shock appears to have a negative significant effect on both girls and boys’ enrolment rate which drops when the household has been affected by the shock. However, no evidence was found that enrolment has an effect on health or income, for either girls or boys.