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Illness contributes to gender gap in education
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Infectious disease is a major contributor to the widening gender gap in education in areas where girls are less likely to complete secondary education, due to the role an older female child may play in taking care of younger children who become ill in place of the mother, according to a study published in Pediatrics.
“In Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, boys are 1.55 times more likely to complete secondary education than girls,” Marcella Alsan, MD, PhD, MPH, from the Center for Health Policy and the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research at Stanford University, and colleagues wrote. “Thus, many girls will miss out on the benefits of a secondary school education, including the reduced risk of HIV, delayed sexual debut, fewer pregnancies during teen years, higher wages and employment later in life and improved educational attainment for their children.”
To examine the hypothesis that the gender gap in education for teenagers is emphasized by the illness of young children in the household, the researchers used data collected through the Demographic and Health Surveys, which included information on 41,821 households in 38 low- and middle-income countries. The researchers then used linear regression to approximate the difference in probability of attendance in school for girls and boys as well as how the gap was affected by illness episodes in children under 5 years.
Additionally, the researchers also assessed the hypothesis that this gender gap is connected to investments in child health. To do this, they observed the relationship between immunization coverage within the countries and the gender gap.
Data was analyzed for 120,708 teenage boys and girls. In the 38 countries included, girls were 5.08% less likely to be in school than boys, despite the absence of recent illness of a child within the household (95% CI, 5.50%-4.65%). When one illness was reported in the same household, this percentage grew to 7.77% (95% CI, 8.24%-7.30%). When two or more illnesses were reported within the same household, the percentage grew again to 8.53% (95% CI, 9.32%-7.74%).
Illness most greatly affected households in which a mother was working, and vaccination rates could mitigate the gender gap in schooling for these countries (correlation coefficient = 0.34, P = 0.02).
“The impact of young child illness on school attendance was not observed in households with only adolescent boys,” Alsan and colleagues wrote. “These effects were substantial and suggest that the gender gap in adolescent school attendance increased by more than 50% when young children in the household became ill.” — by Katherine Bortz
Disclosure: The researcher provides no relevant financial disclosures.
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