Gender Gaps in Primary Schooling in India

描述(申请人提供)：背景：大约1.3亿贫困地区的儿童没有小学教育，其中近三分之二是女孩。在南亚，小学教育中一些最大的性别差距依然存在。目标：该项目将评估印度适龄女童和男童中非家庭机构、家庭特征和相对父母资源与小学成绩之间的净联系。印度的社会经济多样性、超过10亿的居民以及未受过小学教育的女孩比例很高，这使其成为开展这项研究的理想环境。数据：本次分析的样本包括87,301名6-14岁的儿童，他们与参加第二次印度国家家庭健康调查(NFHS-2)的已婚母亲15-49岁的儿童相匹配。这项全国调查有关于入学、入学和成绩的数据；不入学或不入学的原因；家庭资产、宗教和种姓；以及母亲和父亲的人力资源。样本中的儿童将与地区和州一级的措施进行匹配，这些措施最接近他们有资格入学的年龄附近的环境。方法：分别对6~10岁和11~14岁儿童进行分析。我们首先将适用于二元、名义、有序和连续结果的多变量、状态固定效应、人口平均(PA)模型，以评估个人、家庭、地区和州水平属性在衡量入学、当前出勤率、进步和成就方面的净关联性。我们将测试儿童的家庭和社区属性是否会改变估计的教育性别差距。为了解释这些发现，我们将估计多变量、国家固定效应模型，以可能报告儿童不入学和/或不上小学的具体原因。还将估计适用于连续、有序和二元结果的、包括随机截距和儿童性别系数的多水平(单元特定)模型。意义：小学教育对个人、家庭和社会的福祉有重大影响。然而，在许多情况下，女孩的小学教育不足现象依然存在。这项分析的结果将提供有关家庭和社区变数的重要见解，这些变数可能成为实现两性平等和普及小学教育的千年发展目标的新政策和干预措施的重点。该项目还将为南亚和非洲地区正在进行的相关研究和计划中的比较研究建议提供信息，因为在这些地区，教育方面的性别差距仍然特别大。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): BACKGROUND: Approximately 130 million children in poor settings lack primary schooling, and nearly two thirds of these children are girls. Some of the largest gender gaps in primary schooling persist in South Asia. OBJECTIVES: This project will assess net associations of non-family institutions, family characteristics, and relative parental resources with primary-school achievements among age-eligible girls and boys in India. India's socioeconomic diversity, more than 1 billion inhabitants, and high percentages of girls without primary schooling make it an ideal setting in which to conduct this research. DATA: The sample for this analysis includes 87,301 children 6-14 y who are matched to married mothers' 15-49 y who took part in the Second National Family Health Survey of India (NFHS-2). This national survey has data on school entry, attendance, and attainment; reasons for non-entry or non-attendance; household assets, religion, and caste; and maternal and paternal human resources. Children in the sample will be matched to district and state-level measures that best approximate the environment around the age at which they were eligible to enter school. METHOD: Analyses will be conducted for 6-10 and 11-14 year-old children separately. We first will fit multivariate, state fixed-effects, population average (PA) models suitable for binary, nominal, ordinal, and continuous outcomes to assess the net associations of individual, family, district, and state-level attributes on measures of ever entry, current attendance, progression, and attainment. We will test whether children's family and community attributes alter estimated gender gaps in schooling. To interpret the findings, we will estimate multivariate, state fixed effects models for the probably of reporting specific reasons for children's non-entry and/or non- attendance of primary school. Multilevel (unit-specific) models that are suitable for continuous, ordinal, and binary outcomes and that include random intercepts and coefficients for child's gender also will be estimated. SIGNIFICANCE: Primary schooling has major effects on the wellbeing of individuals, their families, and societies. Yet, deficits in primary schooling among girls persist in many settings. Findings from this analysis will provide critical insights about the family and community variables that may be the focus of new policies and interventions to achieve the Millenium Development goals of gender parity and universal primary schooling. The project also will inform on-going related research and planned proposals for comparative research in South Asian and African settings, where gender gaps in schooling remain especially large.