Chapter 2 cover photo credits: Mark Henley / Panos Picture

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Stemming girls’ chronic poverty: Catalysing development change by building just social institutions

rates are substantially lower among indigenous groups. For 

children aged 12 to 14, 84.5 percent of boys go to school versus 

80.5 percent of girls; for the 15 to 19 age range, 41.3 percent 

of boys go to school versus 33.3 percent of girls (INEGI and 

INMUJERES, 2008).

19

 Indigenous girls in Guatemala are the 

least likely of any group to be enrolled in school. At age seven, 

54 percent of indigenous girls are in school, compared with 71 

percent of indigenous boys and 75 percent of non-indigenous 

girls. By the age of 16, only 25 percent of indigenous girls are 

enrolled in school, compared with 45 percent of indigenous 

boys and around 50 percent of non-indigenous boys and girls 

(Hallman et al., 2007). 

Differential  parental  support  for  educating  boys  versus 

girls plays an important role in perpetuating this inequity. 

Analysts  have  identified  a  number  of  explanations  for 

this, including expectations about labour market returns 

and  remittances,  marriage  market  dictates,  concerns  about 

controlling girls’ reproductive health and preserving family 

honour, the probability of school success and continuation 

and intra-household resource constraints (see also Boxes 5 

and 6). In the case of China, for instance, Wang (2005) argues 

that a combination of economic and socio-cultural factors is 

at play. In semi-rural and rural areas, where the One Child 

Policy allows for two children if the first born is a daughter, 

girls with brothers are often subject to the highest risks of 

dropping  out  of  school  because  of  limited  family  finances. 

This is exacerbated by an absence of retirement pensions, 

which means that parents perceive that better-educated sons 

are likely to get better jobs and to be able to provide greater 

financial support in their old age. This gender gap tends to be 

less pronounced in urban areas, where the One Child Policy is 

more firmly enforced, old-age pensions are more common and 

education levels are higher, indicating that parents are less 

likely to discriminate against daughters. 

Himaz  (2009)  argues  that,  in  India,  although  attitudes 

towards girls’ schooling are changing rapidly, the possibility 

for bias towards investing in boys’ education needs to be 

considered at two levels: first, in the decision whether to enrol 

a child in school or not, and second, in education-related 

expenditure once the general commitment to school attendance 

has been made. Findings from a sample of almost 1,000 rural 

households in Andhra Pradesh state found that parents were 

more likely to invest in private school fees and extra tuition 

fees for their sons than for their daughters, although the outlay 

for uniforms, books and transport was equal. This suggests 

that, even if parents decide to support the education of male 

and female children, they tend to place greater importance on 

ensuring quality education for their sons. 

Time poverty

Children’s time use and the extent to which they can shape 

decisions about how their time is allocated between education, 

work and leisure have a significant impact on their material, 

relational and subjective well-being (Vogler et al., 2009). Cross-

country data are limited and uneven at best, but existing 

evidence  suggests  that  time  allocation  patterns  are  highly 

gendered globally, especially in impoverished households 

(Blackden and Wodon, 2006). Although there are important 

context  variations,  overall  research  findings  point  to  girls’ 

greater involvement in domestic and care work activities and 

lower levels of participation in schooling and leisure. Boys 

are more likely to be engaged in paid market-based work, 

schooling  and  leisure,  with  significantly  less  time  spent  on 

Box 13: ‘A girl never finishes her journey’ – bias against daughters’ education in rural Ethiopia

The Young Lives project, an international longitudinal study on childhood poverty over the course of the Millennium Development Goals 

(MDGs), has found strong bias against girls’ education in rural Ethiopia:

‘We prefer to send boys to school. A girl never finishes her journey. She humiliates her parents. When you try to keep sending her to 

school, she does not progress beyond grade 7 or 8. She remains useless; she does not make plans for her future. Secondly, if she 

is weak at school, she gets close to boys and loses her virginity. She loses both her education and her virginity’ (community leader, 

Ethiopia, in Tafere and Camfield, 2009).

‘Education was also seen as risking girls’ reproductive and economic future because if you keep a girl in school rejecting marriage; 

either she gets a boyfriend or gets too old so nobody will ask you to marry her. Then she remains idle at home and parents start cursing 

her as useless, leading to conflict […] Parents prefer to marry her at earlier age when she is demanded by boys to clear her way by giving 

[her] some resources’ (focus group, Ethiopia, in Tafere and Camfield, 2009).

‘Many of the children who do daily labour discontinue their education [and] most of them are young girls. These girls are mainly from 

the poor families – they help their families by doing daily work. During the summer season [school vacation] most of the daily work is 

reduced because the irrigated lands are converted into cereal production, but the cash production will start again in the spring, which 

directly coincides with the time of education. As a result many of them are either absent [from school] or discontinue it. Sometimes the 

work may be heavy and becomes beyond the capacity of the girls to perform’ (focus group, Ethiopia, in Tafere and Camfield, 2009).

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