Gender Differences in School Effects on Learning and Enrollment Outcomes in Rural Malawi

Monica J. Grant, University of Wisconsin at Madison
Erica Soler-Hampejsek, Population Council
Barbara S. Mensch, Population Council
Paul C. Hewett, Population Council

This paper uses data from the 2007 and 2008 rounds of the Malawi Schooling and Adolescent Survey (MSAS) to investigate school-level factors that differentially affect the learning and enrollment outcomes for male and female students. Preliminary analyses show that although female students are significantly more likely than male students to leave school between survey rounds, they are also more likely than males to be literate in English or Chichewa. We find that school level factors make a negligible contribution to the overall variance in school re-enrollment. However, school-level variance accounts for a larger share of the overall variance in math performance, grade repetition, and absenteeism for female relative to male students. This suggests that even though there is no significant difference by sex in the average math score and absenteeism, the association between the sex of the respondent and these outcomes may not be constant across school contexts.