Gender Gaps in Primary Schooling in India

背景：大约有1.3亿贫困儿童没有接受小学教育，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。目的：该项目将评估非家庭机构、家庭特征和相对父母资源与印度适龄女童和男童的小学成绩之间的净关联。印度的社会经济多样性，超过10亿的居民，以及没有小学教育的女孩比例很高，使其成为进行这项研究的理想环境。数据：这项分析的样本包括87，301名6-14岁的儿童，他们与参加印度第二次全国家庭健康调查（NFHS-2）的已婚母亲的15-49岁相匹配。这项全国性调查的数据包括入学、出勤和成绩;不入学或不出勤的原因;家庭资产、宗教和种姓;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相匹配，这些措施最接近他们有资格入学的年龄周围的环境。方法：将分别对6-10岁和11-14岁儿童进行分析。首先，我们将拟合适用于二元、名义、有序和连续结果的多变量、州固定效应、人口平均（PA）模型，以评估个人、家庭、地区和州一级属性对以往入学、当前出勤、进展和成就的衡量标准的净关联。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。为了解释研究结果，我们将估计多变量，状态固定效应模型的可能性报告的具体原因，儿童的非入学和/或不上学的小学。还将估计适用于连续、有序和二元结果的多水平（单位特定）模型，其中包括儿童性别的随机截距和系数。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，女孩接受小学教育的机会仍然不足。这项分析的结果将提供关于家庭和社区变量的重要见解，这些变量可能是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。该项目还将为正在进行的相关研究和计划中的南亚和非洲比较研究提案提供信息，在这些地区，学校教育中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.