The widest enrollment gaps between boys and girls are in South Asia, the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa
•Commentary
About the data
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Data sources
Despite progress in raising both male and female enrollment rates in all regions during the past three decades, school enrollment remains lower among girls than among boys. This gap is widest in South Asia, the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa and reflects both cultural norms and the value of girls' contribution to household work. Moreover, female enrollment rates often mask high absenteeism and dropout rates. Low female enrollment is, in part, a "bootstrap" problem: literate parents, especially mothers, are more likely than illiterate ones to enroll their daughters in school, and once enrolled, these girls are as likely as boys to remain in school.
Most education systems do not prepare boys and girls equally for occupations. Studies of learning styles in industrial countries have found that women leave school with fewer opportunities for continuing their education and poor prospects of translating their higher-level education into social and economic advancement. At the postsecondary and higher levels, where the gap in enrollment between women and men is wider, there is implicit "gender streaming," or sex segregation by field of study. This phenomenon, widespread in both developing and industrial countries, discourages women from acquiring training in a variety of fields, especially the "hard" sciences, mathematics, and engineering.
In the teaching profession, one of the largest occupational fields requiring advanced training, women are well represented in many countries, often constituting more than half of the total qualified employed. But a hierarchical pattern of occupational segregation leads to inequality between women and men at both the top and the bottom of the profession. In many countries men move up to better-paid and more prestigious positions in secondary and higher education as these levels expand, while women predominate at the primary level.
The data on female enrollment suffer from the same problems affecting general school enrollment data discussed in the notes to table 2.8. To the extent that boys or girls may be more likely to drop out of school or repeat grades, male and female enrollment rates may misrepresent the actual pattern of attendance in some countries.
Data on teachers may not reflect the functions they perform. That is, teachers may be employed by schools in many capacities outside the classroom, and the responsibilities assigned to male and female teachers may differ systematically.
• Female teachers as a percentage of total teachers includes full-time and part-time teachers.
• Female pupils as a percentage of total pupils includes enrollments in public and private schools but may exclude certain specialized schools and training programs.
The estimates in this table were compiled using UNESCO's electronic database on institutions, teachers, and pupils.