Publication: Social Exclusion and the Gender Gap in Education
Date
2008-03
ISSN
Published
2008-03
Author(s)
Abstract
Despite a sharp increase in the share of
girls who enroll in, attend, and complete various levels of
schooling, an educational gender gap remains in some
countries. This paper argues that one explanation for this
gender gap is the degree of social exclusion within these
countries, as indicated by ethno-linguistic heterogeneity,
which triggers both economic and psycho-social mechanisms to
limit girls' schooling. Ethno-linguistic heterogeneity
initially was applied to explaining lagging economic growth,
but has emerged in the literature more recently to explain
both civil conflict and public goods. This paper is a first
application of the concept to explain gender gaps in
education. The paper discusses the importance of female
education for economic and social development, reviews the
evidence regarding gender and ethnic differences in
schooling, reviews the theoretical perspectives of various
social science disciplines that seek to explain such
differences, and tests the relevance of ethnic and
linguistic heterogeneity in explaining cross-country
differences in school attainment and learning. The study
indicates that within-country ethnic and linguistic
heterogeneity partly explains both national female primary
school completion rates and gender differences in these
rates, but only explains average national learning outcomes
when national income measures are excluded.
Citation
“Lewis, Maureen; Lockheed, Marlaine. 2008. Social Exclusion and the Gender Gap in Education. Policy Research Working Paper; No. 4562. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/be131267-1bb6-58f4-96e5-d4faa05b048d License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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