Absence of Altruism? Female Disadvantage in Private School Enrolment in India

Exploiting the variation in private school choice among 7-18 year olds born to same parents, the paper provides new evidence of a causal effect of gender on private school choice in India. We show that significant female disadvantage exists in 2005, 2012 and also matched household panel for 2005-2012, but its size varies across sub-samples. This inequity is generally lower among 15-18 year old girls, Christian/Muslim girls, those having mothers with secondary schooling but greater among non-eldest girls. These results tend to reflect the non-altruistic parental preferences, which are deeply held, thus posing challenges to securing ‘education for all’