Exploring Gender Gaps in Education: Causes, Implications, and Solutions

Walk into any government school in India today and you might be surprised: girls now make up nearly half the student body. Yet the story of education in the country is not one of equal opportunity. Behind these enrolment numbers lie deep cracks, sharp dropouts in adolescence, glaring state-level disparities, and a web of socio-cultural beliefs that still treat a daughter’s schooling as optional. Understanding the gender gap in educational access means looking beyond classroom benches to the homes, communities, and economic realities that shape who gets to learn, and for how long.

The numbers tell a complicated story 🔗

On paper, India has made remarkable progress. The Global Gender Gap Report 2024 by the World Economic Forum noted that women’s enrolment in primary, secondary, and tertiary education is high, with girls forming 48% of the school population. The Gross Enrolment Ratio for women in higher education has even nudged ahead of men’s, sitting at 28.5% compared to 28.3% for males.

But enrolment is only one part of the picture. The literacy rate gap between Indian men and women remains a stubborn 17.2 percentage points, with female literacy at 64.63% against male literacy of 80.88%. India ranked 129th out of 146 economies in the 2024 gender gap rankings, slipping partly because of setbacks in educational attainment. So while girls are entering the system, the system is not equally translating that entry into reading, writing, and lifelong learning skills.

What the dropout data reveals 🔗

Dropout patterns expose the gap more honestly than enrolment figures. National data shows girls’ completion of secondary education has actually improved, with around 80 out of every 100 girls finishing secondary school in 2024 compared to 73.5 in 2019. However, this national average hides enormous regional variation.

A tale of three states: Kerala, Bihar, and Rajasthan 🔗

Few comparisons reveal the gendered geography of Indian education better than looking at Kerala, Bihar, and Rajasthan side by side.

Kerala continues to set the benchmark. According to UDISE+ 2024-25 data, Kerala leads with a near-parity Gender Parity Index of 1.02, low secondary dropouts at 3.7%, and a high female teacher ratio of 68.5%. In Kerala, the girls’ secondary school completion rate improved from 93.2 in 2019 to 97.5 in 2024, putting the state on the cusp of universal female schooling.

Bihar tells a very different story. The state has seen the number of girls completing secondary education fall from 51.6 in 2019 to 40.3 in 2024, a sharp decline that has dragged down national averages. Bihar also has a low female teacher ratio of 42.1%, which research repeatedly links to lower girls’ attendance and retention.

Rajasthan sits somewhere between these poles but skews toward Bihar. The state has a high dropout rate, particularly for girls, with around 14% of students dropping out of primary school and 29% at the secondary level. Rajasthan also leads higher-secondary dropouts nationally at 13.3% in 2025, with early marriage cited as a key reason girls leave classrooms.

Why do southern states do better? 🔗

States like Kerala and Tamil Nadu are nearing universal education, with dropout rates below 2%, transitions above 90%, and retention above 90%, driven by robust infrastructure and targeted schemes. They invested early in female teachers, sanitation, and mid-day meals, and their social fabric did not penalise girls for staying in school past puberty. In contrast, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Assam together contribute roughly 60% of India’s annual dropouts, with secondary dropouts ranging between 15% and 20%.

Out-of-school factors: what really keeps girls away 🔗

If enrolment campaigns have largely succeeded, why do so many girls still slip out of the system by adolescence? The answer lies outside the classroom.

Early and child marriage 🔗

Marriage remains one of the single biggest disruptions to a girl’s education. According to UNICEF, India has the largest number of child brides in the world, accounting for one-third of the global total. Research by Girls Not Brides shows that every additional year of secondary schooling reduces the likelihood of child marriage by 6%, yet in many rural communities the social pressure to marry off a daughter begins almost as soon as she enters her teens.

The relationship works both ways. UN Women reports that 23% of Indian women aged 20 to 24 were married before the age of 18, making India one of the countries with the highest rate of child marriage. Once a girl is married, returning to formal schooling becomes extremely difficult, especially after childbirth. The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, sets 18 as the minimum marriage age for girls, but enforcement remains inconsistent in rural pockets where customary norms outweigh legal prohibitions.

Gender-based resource allocation within families 🔗

Even when both a son and a daughter live under the same roof, families often invest unequally in their education. A study published in the Journal of Population Economics found that parents appear to prioritise boys’ education over girls’ when they are credit constrained, meaning policies that reduce poverty also reduce favourable treatment of boys.

Research from Ideas for India highlights how gender gaps in the quality of education have actually increased, especially in families with unwanted girls, even as the quantity of schooling becomes more equal. In practice, this means a daughter may be sent to a nearby government school while her brother is enrolled in a private English-medium school. She gets schooling, but not the same schooling.

Domestic labour deepens this imbalance. Girls are routinely expected to cook, clean, care for siblings, and help with farm work, leaving little time for homework or study. When household budgets tighten, daughters are usually the first to be pulled out.

Concerns about safety and mobility 🔗

Safety, both real and perceived, plays a disproportionate role in girls’ education. In many areas, secondary schools are located several kilometres from home, and parents fear sending adolescent daughters along isolated roads or in mixed-gender public transport. The absence of female teachers, separate toilets, and reliable transport pushes parents toward what they see as the safer option: keeping the girl at home.

The pandemic exacerbated these anxieties. An analysis published in the National Library of Medicine found that while school enrolment for 6 to 14 year olds rose from 97.2% in 2018 to 98.4% in 2022, learning outcomes dropped sharply, with the proportion of grade 8 students able to read basic text falling from 73% to 69.6%. Girls in conservative households who lost school routines during lockdowns often did not return at the same pace as boys.

The deeper roots: socio-cultural norms 🔗

Statistics describe the gap, but culture explains why it persists.

Daughters as ‘paraya dhan’ 🔗

Across much of India, a daughter is still raised with the understanding that she does not truly belong to her natal family. The phrase paraya dhan, meaning ‘another’s wealth’, captures a worldview in which girls are seen as temporary residents who will eventually move to their husband’s home. UNFPA notes that, in this framework, sons are expected to provide financial and emotional care, add to family wealth and property, continue the lineage, and perform religious roles, while daughters drain the family through dowries and have to be defended and protected.

When a daughter is viewed as someone else’s future household member, investing in her schooling feels, to many families, like ‘watering a neighbour’s garden’. The economic logic of patriarchy quietly defeats the moral case for equal education.

Daughters as economic burden 🔗

The financial framing runs deep. Despite legal prohibitions, dowry persists, and parents often calculate a daughter’s life around her wedding rather than her career. A piece on India’s son preference notes that daughters are viewed as economic liabilities who will eventually belong to another family through marriage, and the institution of dowry intensifies this view, making the birth of a girl a matter of financial anxiety. Educating a daughter beyond a basic level is then seen not as preparing her for independence but as adding pressure to find an equally educated, and therefore more expensive, groom.

The ‘gift’ mindset 🔗

Traditional ceremonies like kanyadaan, literally ‘the gift of a virgin daughter’, shape how daughters are emotionally raised, often with adjustment, sacrifice, and silence as expected virtues. This worldview discourages assertiveness, ambition, and prolonged study. Even families that genuinely want their daughters to study often relax those expectations once a ‘good marriage proposal’ arrives.

Implications of the gender gap 🔗

The cost of these patterns is not borne by girls alone.

Lower female education translates directly into poorer maternal and child health, lower household incomes, and slower national economic growth. A study published in the Journal of Global Health Reports concluded that there are substantial economic and social gains from reducing child marriage through interventions that decrease school dropout, increase secondary school completion for girls, and address broader social and cultural disadvantages.

Uneducated mothers are also more likely to raise undernourished children, less likely to vaccinate them, and less able to support their schooling. The cycle reproduces itself across generations. At the macro level, India loses out on a vast pool of skilled labour, scientific talent, and civic leadership simply because half its young people are systematically under-resourced.

Pathways forward 🔗

Closing the gap requires interventions that go beyond building schools. Conditional cash transfers tied to girls’ enrolment and delayed marriage, such as Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, have shown measurable impact in states with high son preference. Increasing the share of female teachers, ensuring functional toilets, providing safe transport, and embedding life skills education into the curriculum can each move the needle. Equally important is community-level work: training local champions to report child marriages, engaging faith leaders to challenge norms, and supporting mothers with livelihood opportunities so daughters are not pulled into early labour or marriage.

The data from Kerala and Tamil Nadu shows what is possible when infrastructure, policy, and culture align. The data from Bihar and Rajasthan shows what is lost when they do not.

What do you think? If girls now outnumber boys in enrolment but still trail in literacy and learning outcomes, where should the next phase of India’s education policy focus its energy? And how much of the gender gap in your own community would change if daughters were no longer raised as paraya dhan?

References

1. https://edukemy.com/blog/gender-gap-in-education-upsc-daily-editorial-analysis-22nd-july-2024-edukemy/
2. https://www.iasgyan.in/daily-current-affairs/gender-gap-in-education-in-india
3. https://educationforallinindia.com/the-status-of-girls-education-in-india-in-2025/
4. https://forumias.com/blog/improvement-in-school-dropout-rates-at-the-national-level/
5. https://educationforallinindia.com/dropout-rates-in-schools-in-india/
6. https://educationforallinindia.com/state-of-dropout-transition-and-retention-rates-based-on-udiseplus-2024-25-data/
7. https://www.smilefoundationindia.org/blog/dropout-among-girls-in-india/
8. https://untf.unwomen.org/en/stories/news/2023/08/preventing-child-marriage-in-india-through-education-and-community-mobilization
9. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00148-023-00941-5
10. https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/social-identity/nakusha-son-preference-unwanted-girls-and-gender-gaps-in-schooling.html
11. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10516864/
12. https://www.unfpa.org/resources/son-preference-and-daughter-neglect-india
13. https://www.smilefoundationindia.org/blog/girl-children/
14. https://www.joghr.org/article/23619-evaluating-interventions-to-reduce-child-marriage-in-india