Girls' Access to Education
In rural India, parents often withdraw their female children from school when they reach puberty, either to protect them or simply because there is little return on investment.
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*Image: Wedding gifts of the son of the imam of Delhi, India, with soldiers and 2000 guests.
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Credit: Jorge Royan, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Ultimately, the goal is for the girl to marry into a socially or economically superior family. Oftentimes educated girls’ families pay higher dowries (Bhatty 1861-1862).
Higher-class marriage, higher dowry.
In avoiding educating their daughters, parents may hope to protect their daughters’ reputation and do not see the benefit of an education since the expectation for women is not to have a job that requires an education.
"The highest result of education is tolerance."
-Helen Keller
*Image: Tara Hunt, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0
Educational Expenditure
Differential educational expenditure by gender is a direct consequence of gender disparities in attainment of education.
In fact, the “gender gap in educational expenditure” is not only present but also “becomes more important with a rise in the age of the child… during making the decision to incur no or zero expenditure vs. the decision to incur at least some expenditure” (Chaudhuri 5276). As children grow up, an overwhelming belief is that it is less and less important for female children to attain higher levels of education, as reflected by enrollment and expenditure statistics.
Across rural areas, “the percentage of all-girl households reporting positive education spending is only about 47.3%, whereas the corresponding percentage for at-least-one-boy households is 66.0%” (Kingdon “Where Has All the Bias Gone” 422). The presence of even one male child in a household increases the presence of positive educational expenditure by almost 20 percentage points. This means that boys benefit from educational spending of a rate 20 percent higher than that of their sisters, which illustrates the educational discrimination against girls that is present within communities, even households.
*Image: Girl students in Chhattisgarh, India.
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Credit: Ekta Parishad, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
*Image: A government school bus in Kerala, India.
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Credit: Pulari Studio Padapparamba, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
A Remarkable Exception:
Kerala, India
Kerala, a state in southern India, has more than half its population living in rural areas and is known for its agricultural sector. Nevertheless, Kerala boasts extremely high rates of female literacy and attainment of education.
The state reaches over 90 percent literacy in many areas of the state and averages at 87.86 percent. Kerala's literacy rates dwarf those of other states in India, especially those that are also predominantly rural.
