What Is the Effect of Schooling on Gender-Egalitarianism? Evidence from the Global South

Daniela Urbina , Princeton University

Compulsory schooling has been a critical state-sponsor policy in developing countries. Among its benefits, demographers and policy-makers have asserted that schooling would accelerate fertility reduction by disseminating gender-egalitarian orientations among students. However, there is still scant evidence that causally identifies the impact of compulsory schooling on gender attitudes. Prior work shows that education is associated with greater gender egalitarianism, yet it is unclear whether this is due to the treatment of education or other selection processes. This paper addresses this challenge by leveraging the implementation of compulsory school reforms in Colombia and Mexico. Using the World Value Survey, I implement a regression discontinuity design that compares cohorts young enough to be affected by these reforms with cohorts that were just too old to have been impacted by these laws. Preliminary findings show that an extra year of schooling does not have a sizable impact on gender egalitarianism, except for beliefs on the value of education for girls. Future analyses will include the cases of Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda, to have a greater variation in country-contexts and compulsory reforms.

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 Presented in Session P3. Poster Session Migration, Economics, Environment, Methods, History and Policy