Skip to main content
Home
  • Data & Research
  • Publications
  • Findings & Impact
  • Search

  • Themes
  • Blog
  • About
  • Young Lives News & Events
  • People
  • Countries

Home+
Themes+
Poverty & Inequality+
Inequality
Migration and mobility
Poverty and shocks
Social protection
Well-being and aspirations
Health & Nutrition+
Early childhood development
Malnutrition and cognitive development
Stunting and catch-up growth
Water and Sanitation
Education+
Early education
Low-fee private schooling
Low-fee private schooling
School effectiveness
Adolescence, Youth and Gender+
Gender
Marriage and parenthood
Child protection+
Children's work
Early marriage and FGM
Violence
Skills & Work
Blog
About
Young Lives News & Events+
Events
Past events
Media coverage
Our Research Films
Galleries
People+
Young Lives Associates
International Advisory Board
Research Partners
Countries

You are here

  • Home
  • Home
  • Publications
  • Reversal of Gender Gaps in Child Development

Publications

  • Reversal of Gender Gaps in Child Development

Share

 
Tweet
Email

Reversal of Gender Gaps in Child Development

May, 2014
Florencia Lopez Boo
Maria Eugenia Canon
  • Health & Nutrition
  • Gender
Economics Letters 124.1: 55–59

Preview

This paper provides unique evidence of a reversal of gender gaps in cognitive development in early childhood. We find steep caste and gender gradients and few substantive changes once children enter school. The gender gap, however, reverses its sign for the upper caste, with girls performing better than boys at age 5 but thereafter following the general pattern in India of boys performing better.

Highlights

  • We analyse unique Indian longitudinal data of early cognitive development.
  • We find steep caste and gender gradients in cognitive development.
  • There is strong evidence of a reversal of gender gaps for the upper caste.
  • Upper caste girls perform better than boys at age 5 but they do worse afterwards.
  • This indicates that differential investments occur before enrollment decisions.
Keywords:Cognitive skills; India; Gender; Caste inequality; Children; Oaxaca

Article written using Young Lives data from the UK Data Archive by researchers from the International American Development Bank and Research Division, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, USA.

Reference

Florencia Lopez Boo and Maria Eugenia Canon (2014) 'Reversal of Gender Gaps in Child Development: Evidence from Young Children in India ' Economics Letters 124.1: 55–59

The full version of the article is available on the journal website.

About

Our people
Our funders
Our research
Contact Young Lives

Newsletter signup

Where we work

  • Ethiopia
  • India
  • Peru
  • Vietnam

Our themes

  • Poverty & Inequality
  • Health & Nutrition
  • Education
  • Gender & Youth
  • Child Protection
  • Skills & Work

Oxford Department of  International Development (ODID)
University of Oxford,  Queen Elizabeth House
3 Mansfield Road, Oxford, OX1 3TB, UK

Copyright 2021 Young Lives
|Privacy policy|Accessibility Statement|Sitemap