Solving it correctly Prevalence and Persistence of Gender Gap in Basic Mathematics in rural India

TL;DR

This study reveals a persistent and increasing gender gap in mathematics performance among rural Indian children aged 8 to 16, influenced by household norms and varying significantly across states from 2010 to 2018.

Contribution

It provides comprehensive evidence of the gender gap in mathematics in rural India, highlighting its persistence, variation across states, and association with gender norms, informing targeted interventions.

Findings

Significant gender gap in mathematics, not in reading skills.

Gap persists and widens with age.

Inter-state variation with north lagging and south reversing gender gap.

Abstract

Mathematical ability is among the most important determinants of prospering in the labour market. Using multiple representative datasets with learning outcomes of over 2 million children from rural India in the age group 8 to 16 years, the paper examines the prevalence of gender gap in performance in mathematics and its temporal variation from 2010 to 2018. Our findings from the regressions show significant gender gap in mathematics, which is not observable for reading skills. This difference in mathematics scores remains prevalent across households of different socio-economic and demographic groups. This gap is found to be persistent over time and it appears to increase as the children get older. We also find significant inter-state variation with the north Indian states lagging behind considerably and the south Indian states showing a reverse gender gap. As an explanation to this, we observe evidence of a robust association between pre-existing gender norms at the household and district level with higher gender gap. The findings, in light of other available evidence on the consequences of such gaps, call for the need to understand these gender specific differences more granularly and periodically to inform gender-specific interventions.