Gender Gap in Gross Enrolment Ratio

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The interactive web dashboard allows users to explore the Gender Gap in Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) across India.

Education Level Selection

Choose an education level via the control panel to view the choropleth map and the top 10 performing states for the following key indicators:

Gender-wise GER distribution
Directional Gender Gap (DGG) in GER
Gender Parity Index (GPI)

Scatter Plot Analysis

Examine visual and statistical relationships between key variables, including:

Boys’ GER vs Girls’ GER
Total GER vs DGG in GER
GPI vs Total GER
GPI vs DGG in GER

About

Background

Gender inequality in education continues to be a significant global issue, and India faces its share of this challenge. Despite progress in increasing educational access, the disparities in enrollment, retention, and learning outcomes between boys and girls persist across various regions and educational levels. Addressing these gender gaps is essential for achieving broader socio-economic development goals and ensuring equitable education opportunities for all children.

The importance of understanding gender disparities in education cannot be overstated. Girls in rural or socio-economically disadvantaged regions are particularly vulnerable to dropping out or not enrolling at all due to socio-cultural norms, early marriage, safety concerns, and inadequate educational infrastructure. These barriers not only perpetuate inequality but also hinder progress toward achieving key global commitments, particularly the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 4 (Quality Education) – Ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education for all and promoting lifelong learning opportunities
SDG 5 (Gender Equality) – Achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls.

Objectives

This gender gap analysis focuses on two core objectives:

State-wise Distribution of Gender-disaggregated GERs (Gross Enrolment Ratios) – Analyzing GERs at primary, upper primary, secondary, and higher secondary levels offers insights into enrollment trends across states, highlighting regions with significant disparities and challenges.
Magnitude and Sensitivity of Gender Disparities – Assessing disparities involves examining the extent of inequality between genders and understanding how this manifests differently across educational levels. Special attention is given to contexts where even low overall enrollment ratios show critical insensitivity to girls’ participation.

Data & Methodology

We compiled data on GERs for the following educational levels: Primary (Grades 1 to 5), Upper Primary (Grades 6 to 8), Elementary (Grades 1 to 8), Secondary (Grades 9-10), and Higher Secondary (Grades 11-12) across Indian states and UTs from the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) 2021-22 report published by the Ministry of Education, Government of India (UDISE+ is an extended version of the previous UDISE system). To analyze the Gender Gap, we first calculated the Directional Gender Gap (DGG) by subtracting the GER of boys from that of girls at different educational levels. It can be mathematically represented as:

DGG = GER₍_Girls)−GER₍_Boys)

This measure provides insights into both the magnitude of the gap and the direction of the disparity, indicating whether boys or girls are favoured. A positive value of the gender gap indicates higher enrolment rates among girls compared to boys, while a negative value suggests greater participation by boys.

Additionally, we calculated the Gender Parity Index (GPI), which is widely used as a socio-economic indicator to measure the ratio of female-to-male access to education, typically expressed as the ratio of Gross Enrollment Ratios (GER) between boys and girls. A GPI of 1 indicates perfect gender parity, while values below or above 1 indicate disparities favouring boys or girls. It can be mathematically represented as:

GPI = GER₍_Girls)/GER₍_Boys)

While the Gender Parity Index (GPI) effectively identifies gender disparities in educational access and helps prevent overemphasis on one gender at the expense of the other, it has two major limitations. First, it is insensitive to low overall enrollment and Second, it ignores the magnitude of disparity. For instance, if the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) is 5 for both boys and girls, the GPI equals 1 (indicating parity) despite critically low enrollment. Similarly, a GER of 95 for both boys and girls also results in a GPI of 1, even though enrollment is high. Moreover, GPI shows only the ratio, not the absolute differences, which can misrepresent disparities. For example, GER values of 90 for girls and 45 for boys yield a GPI of 2 (favouring girls), as do GER values of 20 for girls and 10 for boys, although the latter scenario reflects a more severe enrollment issue for both genders. To address these limitations, a dual-reporting methodology was proposed, which involves creating scatter plots of GPIs versus Total GERs and GPIs versus DGGs, enabling the identification of critical regions with low enrollment or significant disparities. It ensures a clearer understanding of relative and absolute educational access disparities in a single window.

Here, GER₍_Girls)is the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) for girls at a specific educational level, and GER₍_Boys)is the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) for boys at the same educational level.

Licensing and Privacy

This project adheres to a transparent and open-access approach:

Data License: All data and visualizations are shared under the CC-BY 4.0 license, allowing users to share and adapt the content with appropriate attribution.
Privacy Policy: The website does not collect or store personal data. Aggregate visitor statistics are provided by the Content Delivery Network (CDN) without processing or storing personal information.

Acknowledgements

This project was developed by a dedicated team:

Pankaj Chowdhury: Conceptualization, data curation, methodology, analysis, and visualization.
Md Sahil Sheikh: Web development, code design, and implementation.

Suggested Citation

Sarma, M., & Daimary, P. (2024). Gender Disparity in Enrolment in Higher Education Institutions: Trend Analysis.
Swain, J. (2022). A Review of Literature on Gender Disparity in Higher Education System in India. International Journal for Research Trends and Innovation, 7(3), 22-25.
Raju, S. (2008). Gender differentials in access to higher education. Higher education in India: Issues related to expansion, inclusiveness, quality and finance, 79-102.
Amirtham S, N., & Kumar, A. (2021). Gender parity in STEM higher education in India: A trend analysis. International Journal of Science Education, 43(12), 1950-1964.
Chowdhury, P. (2024, December 22). From Primary to Higher Secondary: Tracking Gender Dynamics in Indian Educational Enrolment – 360 Analytika. 360 Analytika. https://360analytika.com/gender-disparity-in-gross-enrolment-ratio-in-india/

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