The Hidden Gender Gap in Education Investment

Full transcript

If you could only afford a better education for one child, who would get it? An Indian middle-class family stands at a crossroads — a teenage son on one side, a teenage daughter on the other. Both waiting. Both equal on paper. When we talk about girls and education in India, we almost always ask the same question: are they in school? But that may be exactly the wrong question to be asking. Enrollment is not the whole story — not even close. Here is what the data actually shows. Across India, 58.4 percent of girls attend government schools, compared with 53.8 percent of boys. That is a 4.6 percentage-point difference — and it tells us something important about where families are choosing to send each child. And the gap does not stay the same — it grows. At pre-primary level, the difference between girls and boys in government schools is small. But by higher secondary, the two lines have pulled noticeably apart, and girls are consistently more concentrated in the government school system. Then follow the money. Families spend an average of 13,470 rupees on a boy's school education, and 11,666 on a girl's. That is a difference of 1,804 rupees. The same pattern holds in private coaching, and in urban higher-secondary coaching the gap widens to nearly two thousand rupees. No parent has to say out loud that their daughter deserves less. The calculation can happen quietly — shaped by household economics, son preference, and perceived returns on education. So the real question is not simply why girls end up in cheaper schools. It is this: what would it take to change that calculation entirely?