Data check: India’s gender gap in private education defies caste and class
An analysis of government survey data reveals that India's gender gap in private school enrollment remains persistent regardless of caste or household income. While income explains some disparities for OBC children, it does not account for the gender-based gap.
Why it matters
It provides empirical evidence that gender inequality in education is a structural issue that transcends economic and caste-based interventions.
Imagine three children who are not getting the education their neighbours get.
The first is an Adivasi. The second is from a household belonging to the poorest 20% of the population. The third is a girl. The intuitive picture is that these disadvantages pile on top of one another: that a poor Adivasi girl carries three burdens, each multiplying the last.
Using household-level data from the government’s 2025 Comprehensive Modular Survey: Education (CMS-E), conducted as part of the 80th round of the National Sample Survey (NSS), we looked at whether that is true. Some of it is. A good deal of it is not. We found that the gender gap barely moves at all. It does not change with caste, or with income, or with anything a family can buy its way out of.
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