Abstract:
Gender bias in developing countries like Pakistan restricts educational opportunities for girls in comparison to boys. This thesis attempts to determine the role of gender disparity in enrollments of children falling in the age bracket of 5 years-18 years across Pakistan. Using the data from PSLM 2010-2011, the study utilizes the Oaxaca decomposition along with Probit estimation method to measure gender gap through explained and unexplained variation in overall school enrollments across Pakistan and enrollments in public vs. private schools for three levels of education: primary, middle/secondary and higher secondary. Moreover, data on maximum years of education achieved is used to further justify presence of gender bias through Oaxaca-OLS combination for individuals between ages 18 years to 30 years. The results interestingly show that strong pro-male bias exists only in overall enrollment rates however, disaggregation of enrollments at private/public school choice and across three levels of educations indicate strong pro-female preference in the study.
