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theses

Despite years of educational reform and significant increases in overall school enrollment and literacy rates, a substantial gender gap in educational attainment persists in India. One of the biggest obstacles to girls’ participation in education is the persistence of gender-based discrimination in parental investment in education. Prior research on the gender gap in parental investment has focused on the description of this social problem. Few studies have examined the role of mothers’ education, employment, or pathways between these factors and investment in children’s education. Maternal education, which provides women with greater autonomy and decision-making power in the household may be a potential tool to reduce this gender gap. The current study uses two waves of the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) to explore the associations between mothers’ education and employment, and investment in children’s education, and the pathways through which these relationships may operate. Investment in children’s education is operationalized based on two constructs: children’s enrollment in school, and conditional on enrollment, expenditures on children’s education. The role of two pathways were explored: mothers’ decision-making power and mothers’ beliefs in egalitarian gender norms. The current study also investigates whether the relationship between mothers’ education and employment, and investment in children’s education, differs by child gender, caste, religion, consumption per capita, community beliefs regarding interpersonal violence, and statewide measures of gender empowerment and gender development.
Results indicate that mothers’ education is positively associated with children’s enrollment in school. Mothers’ secondary or higher education is also positively associated with conditional expenditures on children’s education. For girls, mothers’ higher education was more beneficial for enrollment, whereas for boys, mothers’ higher education was more beneficial for conditional expenditures. Neither mothers’ decision-making power, nor mothers’ beliefs in egalitarian gender norms mediated the associations between mothers’ education and employment and investment in children’s education. Regional levels of gender equity strengthened the positive relationship between mothers’ education and conditional expenditures on girls’ education. For enrollment, mothers’ education had a larger impact in houses with low consumption whereas for conditional expenditures, mothers’ education was more advantageous in households with high rates of consumption. Lastly, children from more disadvantaged religions and castes gained more from their mothers’ education than Hindu and upper caste children.
Findings indicate that although mothers’ education is beneficial for children’s schooling, increases in mothers’ education alone cannot transform gender inequalities in conditional expenditures. A public education system that provides tuition-free, quality education, may be most effective in increasing girls’ access to quality education. Because parents need to be incentivized to send their girls to school, the current amount of government assistance in education needs to be increased. There is also a need for holistic policy solutions that provide general cash assistance to needy families, target women’s employment, and increase social security for older adults to address existing inequalities in parental investment in children’s education.

ETD_9133

doi:10.7282/T3V69P7R

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Sangeeta Chatterji

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.