I have been particularly interested in the relationship between poverty and gender inequality. In rural areas, the educational participation of girls is more sensitive to family socio-economic status than is the educational participation of boys. Families spend more for education when there are boys in the household than when there are girls. In the context of rising costs of education, girls are at risk. In fact, between the 1982 and the 1990 censuses, we can see some evidence of an increase in the gender difference in transitions to junior high school in rural areas.
Evidence suggests that poverty and educational costs affect girls disproportionately.
Thus, we might expect that rising costs in education would disproportionately affect girls. In a period when costs are rising and poverty is more of an issue in terms of determining access to schooling, we see evidence of an increase in the gender gap in junior high-school transition. This is surprising given the common expectation that economic development promotes gender equity in education. In China during the period of the Cultural Revolution, when there was negligible economic growth, we observed a narrowing of the gender gap at the junior high school level. In the period of market reforms, a period of rapid economic growth, we observe little improvement and actually a slight widening of the gender gap, at least at the junior high-school level.