Do Girls Have a Higher School Drop-out Rate than Boys? A Hazard Rate Analysis of Evidence from a Third World City

Abstract

This paper estimates gender-specific conditional probabilities of drop-out from the schools in Karachi, a large metropolitan city of Pakistan. The analysis is based on the socio-economic and demographic data of family members extracted from a large sample survey of households in the city. Studies in urban Pakistan have found a lower participation rate (unconditional probability) for girls than boys. In contrast, our results indicate that the probability of drop-out of females is lower than boys at institutionally established 'exit' points in the schooling system of Karachi.