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Adapting the Supply of Education to the Needs of Girls: Evidence from a Policy Experiment in Rural India

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  • Marian Meller
  • Stephan Litschig

Abstract

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of a large-scale government initiative (NPEGEL/KGBV) that provided earmarked funds for addressing girls?special needs to public schools in rural India. Our empirical strategy exploits local variation in program eligibility around a threshold based on the female literacy rate at the community level. The main result is that the program led to an enrollment gain of about 6-7 percentage points for girls in upper primary school. Evidence of an enrollment gain for boys is tentative. Available evidence on mechanisms suggests that the program improved girl-friendly school infrastructure and services, as well as gender-neutral school resources.

Suggested Citation

  • Marian Meller & Stephan Litschig, 2015. "Adapting the Supply of Education to the Needs of Girls: Evidence from a Policy Experiment in Rural India," Working Papers 805, Barcelona School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bge:wpaper:805
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Chatterjee Somdeep, 2017. "Getting Girls to Schools! – Assessing the Impacts of a Targeted Program on Enrollment and Academic Performance," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 17(1), pages 1-6, February.
    2. Harounan Kazianga & Francis Makamu, 2017. "Crop Choice, School Participation, and Child Labor in Developing Countries: Cotton Expansion in Burkina Faso," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 99(1), pages 34-54.
    3. Ahmed Elsayed & Olivier Marie, 2020. "Less School (Costs), More (Female) Education? Lessons from Egypt Reducing Years of Compulsory Schooling," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 20-037/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    4. Stephanie Psaki & Nicole Haberland & Barbara Mensch & Lauren Woyczynski & Erica Chuang, 2022. "Policies and interventions to remove gender‐related barriers to girls' school participation and learning in low‐ and middle‐income countries: A systematic review of the evidence," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(1), March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    girls' education; school enrollment; Gender Gap; school resources; regression discontinuity; impact evaluation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • O22 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Project Analysis

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