More girls studying, but 84% drop out after graduation

Prachi Salve/IANS

While more young women are enrolled in higher education than ever before -- and apparently more successful in clearing 10th-standard board exams than young men -- they are either marrying early or not finding or not looking for jobs, according to an IndiaSpend analysis of various data.

The enrolment of girls in higher education increased from 39 per cent to 46 per cent from 2007 to 2014, but female participation in India's labour force declined to a low of 27 per cent in 2014 from 34 per cent in 1999, according to a 2015 study by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Almost 12 million women are enrolled in undergraduate courses, but few continue to professional courses; 600,000 women were enrolled for diploma courses in 2013, the latest year for which data is available. Even fewer women -- only 40 per cent -- sign on for PhDs.

In 2016, girls were more successful than boys in clearing the 10th-standard exams of a national education board, a trend that has held over seven years.

While 428,443 girls appeared for the 10th-standard exams of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), 379,523 were successful -- a pass percentage of 88.5, according to CBSE data. By comparison, 564,213 boys wrote the exams and 444,832 were successful -- a pass percentage of 79.

Pressure to marry early continues

So, what happens to these girls after the board exams?

The CBSE is one of many boards nationwide, but the trend of girls overtaking boys is probably being repeated elsewhere. What could be responsible for the trend reversing itself in higher education and young women not making it to the job market is the push to get married.

Although the median age of marriage has increased, it continues to be low: 19.2 for women in 2011 (up from 18.2 in 2001), according to 2011 Census data. Men got married, on average, at 23.5 in 2011, up from 22.6 in 2001.

The enrolment in higher education has been estimated to be 33.3 million, of which 17.9 million were male and 15.4 million female in 2014-15, according to the All India Survey on Higher Education, released by the Ministry of Human Resource Development in 2015.

Young women accounted for 46 per cent of the total enrolment in higher education, an improvement from 44.3 per cent in 2012-13.

The gross enrolment ratio (GER, the number of college students in the 18-23 age group as a proportion of all young men and women in that age group) in higher education in India was 23.6 in 2014-15, up from 20.8 in 2012-13. This is lower than the global average of 27 and lower than other emerging economies such as China (26) and Brazil (36), according to data released by the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

While the GER for young men was 24.5, that for young women was 22.7 in 2014-15, an improvement from 17.9 in 2012-13.

The number of young men enrolled for higher education increased 13 per cent to 17.9 million in 2014-15, from 15.8 million in 2012-13. The number of young women enrolled increased 21 per cent to 15.3 million from 12.6 million.

After graduation, numbers of men increase, women decrease

The highest concentration of women is seen among undergraduates, at 12.4 million, followed by 1.9 million for post-graduation. Only 0.6 million girls are enrolled for diploma courses.

As many as 14 million boys are enrolled in undergraduate courses (almost 17.5 per cent higher than girls), followed by post-graduation (1.8 million, or 6.1 per cent lower than girls) and graduate diploma courses (1.6 million, 61 per cent higher than girls).

The trend of more young men than women is evident at almost every level after high school, except M.Phil, post-graduate and certificate courses, where female enrolment is slightly higher than male enrolment. Post-graduate courses have 49 per cent males and 51 per cent females, according to the data released by Ministry of Human Resource Development.

Women tend to focus on the humanities, with 38 per cent of all women enrolled in Bachelor of Arts courses, followed by science and commerce; 28 per cent of men enrol for BA courses. When it comes bachelors of education, women (2.8 per cent) once again outnumber men (1.8 per cent).

Up to eight per cent of all young men sign up for bachelor's courses in engineering, nearly double of women (4.1 per cent). There is a similar skew for male (nine per cent) and female (4.5 per cent) in bachelors' technology courses.

Women dwindling in workforce, despite rising female enrolment in higher education

When the gender parity index -- or GPI, the ratio of female students to male students -- in higher education rises, it should lead to higher female labour force participation rates, typically measured as the share of women employed or seeking work as a share of the working-age female population.

In addition to raising labour input, the resulting human-capital accumulation should boost potential output, according to a 2015 study by the IMF. But the percentage of women in India's workforce is declining, as IndiaSpend reported in March 2015.

India's female labour force participation has dropped from 35 per cent in 1991 to 27 per cent in 2014, a rate below the global average of around 50 per cent and the East Asian average of around 63 per cent, according to a 2015 IMF study.

As incomes rise, women's labour force participation often falls, only to rise again when female education levels improve; consequently, the value of women in the labour market increases, the IMF study said. That is not happening in India.