Abstract
This paper examines the magnitude and source of gender gaps in cognitive and social-emotional skills in early primary grades in rural Indonesia. Relative to boys, girls score more than 0.17 SD higher in tests of language and mathematics (cognitive skills) and between 0.18 and 0.27 SD higher in measures of social competence and emotional maturity (social-emotional skills). We use Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition to investigate the extent to which gender differences in early schooling and parenting practices explain these gender gaps in skills. For cognitive skills, differences in early schooling between boys and girls explain between 9% and 11% of the gender gap whereas differences in parenting practices explain merely 3%–5% of the gender gap. This decomposition result is driven largely by children living in villages with high-quality preschools. In contrast, for social-emotional skills, differences in parenting styles toward boys and girls explain between 13% and 17% of the gender gap, while differences in early schooling explain only 0%–6% of the gender gap.
Original language | English |
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Article number | e12931 |
Pages (from-to) | 1-17 |
Number of pages | 17 |
Journal | Developmental Science |
Volume | 23 |
Issue number | 5 |
Early online date | 10 Dec 2019 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Sept 2020 |
Funding
This study was funded by the DIME‐administered IE2I TF (TF018488). Data collection was partially funded by the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands through the Dutch Education Support Program Trust Fund (TF057272). Haeil Jung's contribution was partly supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF‐2016S1A3A2924956). We thank Dedy Junaedi, Upik Sabainingrum, Anas Sutisna, Lulus Kusbudiharjo, and Mulyana for managing the fieldwork. Mayla Safuro Lestari Putri and Mulyana provided excellent research assistance.
Funders | Funder number |
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Dutch Education Support Program Trust Fund | TF057272 |
Ministry of Education | |
National Research Foundation of Korea | NRF‐2016S1A3A2924956 |
National Research Foundation of Korea |
Keywords
- cognitive skills
- early childhood
- economic development
- gender
- human capital
- social-emotional skills
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Early Childhood Education and Development (ECED) Impact Evaluation, 2010, Round 2
Pradhan, M. (Contributor), Safuro, M. (Owner) & Rizal, H. (Data Manager), World Bank, 29 Oct 2019
https://microdata.worldbank.org/index.php/catalog/3535/study-description
Dataset / Software: Dataset