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Gender and Education for All
THE LEAP TO EQUALITY |
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| Box 3.2. Gender inequalities in education: the South Asian case | |
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The broad pattern of social relations in South Asia provides a compelling illustration of their influence on gendered outcomes. Throughout that region, variations in gender inequality in education partly mirror regional variations in patriarchy. There is a well-documented ‘north–south’ divide among Indian states such that those in the north-western plains have historically displayed a pattern of extreme discrimination whereas southern states have had more egalitarian relations (Dyson and Moore, 1983; Miller, 1981). It is also significant that the northern states generally had higher levels of fertility, lower levels of contraceptive use, lower levels of female labour-force participation and more marked son-preference than states in the south.
This regional pattern confounds the relationship between economic development and gender equality at the ‘state’ level. Thus, Punjab and Haryana in northern India reported the highest state-level per capita incomes in 1981 as well as some of the lowest sex ratios (around 870 women to 1,000 men) whereas Kerala and Tamil Nadu, both southern states with lower per capita incomes, reported sex ratios of 1,032 and 977, respectively. The relationship between gender equality and poverty is further complicated by caste. Historical evidence and contemporary data all confirm that gender discrimination is particularly marked among the propertied castes in northern India. It has been shown that, in the early 1930s, sex ratios among the 0–7 age group were generally substantially in favour of males among
| | the propertied castes in the northern plains of India, and even more so among the propertied upper castes. In the southern states, on the other hand, the propertied castes either had balanced or female-biased sex ratios whereas the ‘unpropertied’ castes had balanced or slightly male-biased ratios (Miller, 1985). The pattern was continued into the 1980s, but there was a ‘worsening’ of sex ratios both among poorer castes and in some of the southern states over time, suggesting the spread of forms of gender discrimination to groups and areas where they were not previously prevalent (Agnihotri, 2000).
Elsewhere in the region, Pakistan displays many of the characteristics of the ‘northern’ pattern while Sri Lanka appears to have more in common with the southern states. The mountainous areas of northern India and Nepal are generally more egalitarian than the plains. Bangladesh, along with eastern states of India, has proved less easy to classify. They have certain characteristics in common with the northern states but appear not to have such markedly adverse sex ratios (Dyson and Moore, 1983).
Thus, in South Asia, variations in poverty provide only part of the explanation for observed variations in gender inequality in education. Pakistan, for example, with higher per capita GNP than either India or Bangladesh, reports higher levels of gender inequality in education than either country (Annex, Table 1).
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Source: Kabeer (2003a, 2003b).
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