Gender and wealth disparities in schooling: Evidence from 44 countries

This paper uses internationally comparable household data sets (Demographic and Health Surveys) to investigate how gender and wealth interact to generate within-country inequalities in educational enrollment and attainment. The paper highlights that girls are at a great educational disadvantage in particular regions: South Asia and North, Western, and Central Africa. There are two main new findings. First, while gender gaps are large in a subset of countries, wealth gaps are large in almost all of the countries studied-and typically larger than corresponding gender gaps. Second, and of special concern, is the finding that in particular countries where there is a large female disadvantage in enrollment, wealth interacts with gender to exacerbate the gap in educational outcomes.