Gender, Credit Constraints, and Education in Rural Thailand

The study examines the effects of gender and credit constraints on rural students' advancement to secondary education, which is arguably the major bottleneck in Thailand's education system. Credit constraints are measured indirectly through rainfall variation, availability of informal lenders in the village, and household specific variables especially titled land owned by the household. The empirical evidence from two provinces in Northern and Northeastern Thailand, based on the results of probit estimation, consistently confirms that gender differences affect investment in boys' and girls' secondary education differently. However, there are also some indications that the gender effect has been diminishing over time.