WATERING THE NEIGHBOUR'S GARDEN: THE GROWING - CICRED

176
3.8. Sex Differentials in Education
N. ALAM –J. VAN GINNEKEN –A. BOSCH
Table 9 shows that education has become more widespread over
the years among both men and women. Rates of women ever enrolled
in school or who completed grade 5 and above are a little higher than
for men in 2004. This was not yet the case in 1993-94. The rates of
men who completed grade 10 or more are higher than for women in
both 2004 and 1993-94. This is due to the fact that more women
married earlier than men (i.e., in age group 15-19 years old) and, therefore,
dropped out of school earlier than men.
Table 9 Percentage of the de facto household population aged 6-24 years by
school enrolment, age and sex, BDHS 1993-1994 and 2004
Ever enrolled in
school (%)
Completed grade 5
and above (%)
Completed grade 10
and above (%)
Age
group Male Female Male Female Male Female
BDHS 2004
06-09
10-14
15-19
20-24
BDHS 1993-94
06-09
10-14
15-19
20-24
84.5
91.3
86.7
84.2
76.5
79.1
73.6
67.0
87.6
92.7
88.0
76.1
73.6
77.8
63.8
50.6
Sources: BDHS, 1993-94 and BDHS, 2004.
-
34.9
66.7
66.8
0.3
17.9
43.3
42.1
0.5
43.2
70.5
72.9
0.2
18.1
33.1
23.5
4. Gender discrimination and policy implications
-
-
8.9
23.8
-
-
5.9
15.6
-
0.1
7.7
16.4
In this study we provided strong evidence that the female-to-male
disadvantage in survival has decreased considerably in Bangladesh in
the past 25 years. All the evidence on this point came from Matlab, but
it is very likely that this also is the case in rural Bangladesh as a whole
in view of the representativeness of the comparison area for these rural
areas. The evidence concerning a decrease in female disadvantage in
nutrition and use of health care also points in the direction of a decrease
in female disadvantage, but is less convincing due to limitations
of data on trends and to inconsistencies in the available data. We found
strong evidence for a decrease in female/male disadvantage in primary
education.
We started our search for evidence by looking at trends in sex ratios
both in Bangladesh as a whole as well as in Matlab. At the national
-
0.1
4.7
6.4