IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp4108.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Gender Education Gap in China: The Power of Water

Author

Listed:
  • Maimaiti, Yasheng

    (Xinjiang University)

  • Siebert, W. Stanley

    (University of Birmingham)

Abstract

We investigate girls' school dropout rates, bringing forward a novel variable: access to water. We hypothesise that a girl's education suffers when her greater water need for female hygiene purposes after menarche is not met because her household has poor access to water. For testing we use data from rural villages in the China Health and Nutrition Survey. We find that menarche is associated with an increase in the school dropout rate, and indeed the effect is weaker for girls who have good access to water. Water engineering can thus contribute significantly to reducing gender education gaps in rural areas.

Suggested Citation

  • Maimaiti, Yasheng & Siebert, W. Stanley, 2009. "The Gender Education Gap in China: The Power of Water," IZA Discussion Papers 4108, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4108
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp4108.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrea Ichino & Enrico Moretti, 2009. "Biological Gender Differences, Absenteeism, and the Earnings Gap," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 183-218, January.
    2. Hannum, Emily & Buchmann, Claudia, 2005. "Global Educational Expansion and Socio-Economic Development: An Assessment of Findings from the Social Sciences," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 333-354, March.
    3. Lauer, Charlotte, 2003. "Family background, cohort and education: A French-German comparison based on a multivariate ordered probit model of educational attainment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 231-251, April.
    4. Paul Schultz, T., 2002. "Why Governments Should Invest More to Educate Girls," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 207-225, February.
    5. Lee, Yiu-fai Daniel, 2008. "Do families spend more on boys than on girls? Empirical evidence from rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 80-100, March.
    6. Ambrus, Attila & Field, Erica, 2008. "Early Marriage, Age of Menarche, and Female Schooling Attainment in Bangladesh," Scholarly Articles 3200264, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    7. Knight, John & Li, Shi, 1996. "Educational Attainment and the Rural--Urban Divide in China," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 58(1), pages 83-117, February.
    8. M. Anne Hill & Elizabeth King, 1995. "Women's education and economic well-being," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(2), pages 21-46.
    9. Mario Cleves & William W. Gould & Roberto G. Gutierrez & Yulia Marchenko, 2010. "An Introduction to Survival Analysis Using Stata," Stata Press books, StataCorp LP, edition 3, number saus3.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhang, Jing & Xu, Lixin Colin, 2016. "The long-run effects of treated water on education: The rural drinking water program in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 1-15.
    2. Peng, Fei & Anwar, Sajid & Kang, Lili, 2022. "Number of siblings, access to treated water and returns to education in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 526-538.
    3. Xu, Lixin Colin & Zhang, Jing, 2014. "Water quality, brawn, and education: the rural drinking water program in China," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7054, The World Bank.
    4. Emily Oster & Rebecca Thornton, 2011. "Menstruation, Sanitary Products, and School Attendance: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 91-100, January.
    5. Kang, Lili & Peng, Fei, 2012. "Siblings, public facilities and education returns in China," MPRA Paper 38922, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Maimaiti, Yasheng & Siebert, W. Stanley, 2010. "Wage Work for Women: The Menstrual Cycle and the Power of Water," IZA Discussion Papers 4776, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stimpfle, Alexander & Stadelmann, David, 2016. "Marriage Age Affects Educational Gender Inequality: International Evidence," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145492, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Gavin Jones & Divya Ramchand, 2013. "Education and human capital development in the giants of Asia," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 27(1), pages 40-61, May.
    3. Yeasmin Sayeed, 2016. "Effect of girls' secondary school stipend on completed schooling, age at marriage, and age at first birth," WIDER Working Paper Series 110, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Marian Meller & Stephan Litschig, 2016. "Adapting the Supply of Education to the Needs of Girls: Evidence from a Policy Experiment in Rural India," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 51(3), pages 760-802.
    5. Tatiana Damjanovic & Geethanjali Selvaretnam, 2020. "Economic Growth and Evolution of Gender Equality," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 88(1), pages 1-36, January.
    6. Tansel, Aysit, 2011. "Intergenerational educational mobility in Turkey," MPRA Paper 68435, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Gihoon Hong & Soyoung Kim & Geunhwan Park & Seung-Gyu Sim, 2019. "Female Education Externality and Inclusive Growth," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-12, June.
    8. Tansel, Aysit, 2011. "Intergenerational educational mobility in Turkey," MPRA Paper 68435, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Yeasmin Sayeed, 2016. "Effect of girls' secondary school stipend on completed schooling, age at marriage, and age at first birth: Evidence from Bangladesh," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2016-110, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    10. Kazuya Masuda & Chikako Yamauchi, 2017. "The Effects of Female Education on Adolescent Pregnancy and Child Health: Evidence from Uganda fs Universal Primary Education for Fully Treated Cohorts," GRIPS Discussion Papers 17-01, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.
    11. Maimaiti, Yasheng & Siebert, W. Stanley, 2010. "Wage Work for Women: The Menstrual Cycle and the Power of Water," IZA Discussion Papers 4776, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Tanu Gupta & A. Ganesh Kumar, 2020. "Structural equation approach to modelling social norms in female education: A Case study of India," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2020-32, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    13. Thomas Leoni, 2011. "Fehlzeitenreport 2011. Krankheits- und unfallbedingte Fehlzeiten in Österreich," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 42691, January.
    14. Das Gupta, Monica & Bongaarts, John & Cleland, John, 2011. "Population, poverty, and sustainable development : a review of the evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5719, The World Bank.
    15. Fofack, Hippolyte, 2012. "Accounting for gender production from a growth accounting framework in Sub-Saharan Africa," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6153, The World Bank.
    16. Brigitte Granville & Jaume Martorell Cruz & Martha Prevezer, 2015. "Elites, Thickets and Institutions: French Resistance versus German Adaptation to Economic Change, 1945-2015," Working Papers 63, Queen Mary, University of London, School of Business and Management, Centre for Globalisation Research.
    17. Aysit Tansel & Nil Demet Güngör, 2016. "Gender Effects of Education on Economic Development in Turkey," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Nadereh Chamlou & Massoud Karshenas (ed.), Women, Work and Welfare in the Middle East and North Africa The Role of Socio-demographics, Entrepreneurship and Public Policies, chapter 3, pages 57-86, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    18. Corno, Lucia & Voena, Alessandra, 2023. "Child marriage as informal insurance: Empirical evidence and policy simulations," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    19. Asadullah, M. Niaz & Webb, Amber & Islam, Kazi Md Mukitul, 2024. "SDG 4 mid-point challenge: Fixing the broken interlinkages between education and gender equality," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    20. Chen, Yi & Zhao, Yi, 2022. "The timing of first marriage and subsequent life outcomes: Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 713-731.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    education; gender gaps; menarche; water; China;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • 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
    • L95 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Gas Utilities; Pipelines; Water Utilities
    • Q25 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Water

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4108. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.