Gender Disparities in Educational Trajectories in India: Do Females Become More Robust at Higher Levels?

Studies on educational attainments have tended to focus on attainments at a specific level of education. The change in disparities in attainment over the educational life cycle, however, has been neglected in literature-in India, for instance, the only exceptions are Vaid (2004) and Desai and Kulkarni (2008). This paper uses unit level National Sample Survey data (2004-2005) to examine gender disparities at different educational levels up to the high school level. Bi-variate analysis of gender disparities computed using the Sopher-Kundu index indicates that although there are substantial gender disparities at lower levels of education, this gets reversed at higher levels in several states. At the all-India level, too, in recent years, a reversal of disparity may be observed in urban areas. Econometric analysis using the variable parameter variant of the generalized ordered logit model reveals that robustness of females increase over the educational life cycle, though disparity remains, after controlling for socio-economic traits.