DECOMPOSING THE GENDER-GAP IN COGNITIVE SKILLS IN A POOR RURAL ECONOMY

Girls lag markedly behind boys in education in many developing countri es, which may slow economic growth and increase inequity. This paper u ses indicators of the output of the education production process, cogn itive skills, to characterize and to investigate the determinants of t he large educational gender gap in rural Pakistan. Local school availa bility accounts for about a third of the total cognitive achievement g ender gap and over two-fifths of that in numeracy, which implies that policies that increased local school availability for girls could redu ce substantially the gender gaps in cognitive skills. To further reduc e these gender gaps will require policies that focus on the demand sid e of the market, where, our results suggest, the response to modest ch anges in incentives may be high.