Beginning as early as primary school and continuing through secondary school, the journey of education can be vastly different depending on whether a child is a boy or a girl. Measuring these differences and whether they result in advantages or disadvantages for children is critical for education policy planning. Policymakers need to be equipped with gender analysis so that they can address inequities in schooling between girls and boys and target interventions to prevent the most marginalized students from being left behind.
Education pathway analysis tracks the progression of youth of upper secondary school age (typically aged 15 to 17) from the point of entry into primary school through transition to upper secondary school. Building on a previous report analyzing education levels across 103 countries and territories, this blog spotlights the distinct educational trajectories of girls and boys and where they might diverge.
Globally girls and boys are equally likely to enter primary school and transition to lower secondary school, but girls are more likely to transition to upper secondary school.
Who has the advantage when it comes to entering primary school in the first place? Globally, it turns out that there is gender parity on average, meaning that there are roughly the same number of boys and girls who enter primary school. Around the world, 91 per cent of girls ever enter primary school compared to 93 per cent of boys.
As the education journey continues, however, the balance starts to progressively shift in favor of girls. An almost equal share of girls and boys make the transition to lower secondary school – 78 per cent versus 79 per cent, respectively. Girls continue to gain ground as they progress to the next stage of their education, and even surpass boys as they make the transition to upper secondary school. Globally, 54 per cent of girls make this transition as opposed to 52 per cent of boys, with the difference large enough to acknowledge that girls have obtained the advantage.
Education pathway analysis around the world by gender 
Source: UNICEF Education Pathway Analysis database (2021)
Though boys start out with a distinct advantage in entering primary school, this balance shifts in favor of girls in upper secondary school.
The global picture belies notable exceptions at the country level, however (Fig 2). Although girls and boys begin primary school on an equal footing in 80 countries, boys begin with a distinct advantage in 23 countries. Notably, in all countries analyzed, either more boys enter primary school than girls or the enrollment of boys is on par with that of girls.
Girls gradually gain the advantage as they continue their schooling, and by the time they transition to lower secondary school, girls have assumed the advantage in 33 countries. But girls do not gain ground everywhere, as boys have the advantage in 30 countries at the point of transition to lower secondary, up from 23 countries for primary school.
Number of countries with gender parity in school enrollment, girl advantage, or boy advantage, by level of education
Source: UNICEF Education Pathway Analysis database (2021)
Nevertheless, girls continue to advance as they make the transition to upper secondary school, such that girls have the advantage in more than half of the countries (55 in total) at this stage of their education. This is especially noteworthy considering that girls did not start out their educational journeys having an advantage in any of the 103 countries and territories. Rather, they were able to “catch up” as they continued their education. Boys also experienced some advancement, as the number of countries where boys had the advantage increased as well, up from 23 at entry to primary to 32 at the transition to upper secondary school. This suggests that when boys start out having an advantage, they tend to maintain and slowly expand this advantage over time, which could speak to the persistence of discriminatory gender norms against girls in some countries. Overall, however, the findings point to the strides that girls have made along their educational journeys, when they initially start out on either an equal footing with boys or disadvantaged to them, and then frequently surpass boys by the time they transition to upper secondary school.
Most regions begin with gender parity in school enrollment and then girls gain the advantage, with the exception of Western and Central Africa where boys maintain the advantage through upper secondary school.
Grouping the countries by region also reveals some interesting differences (Fig. 3). In East Asia and the Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean, there was predominantly gender parity at the start of children’s educational journey, but girls decidedly gained the advantage by the time they transitioned to upper secondary school. Among countries in Eastern and Southern Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia, some boys began with an advantage in entry to primary, but by the time of transition to upper secondary school, girls had gained the advantage in the majority of countries. Western and Central Africa is the only region in which boys retained the advantage through the transition to upper secondary school.
Percentage of countries with gender parity, girl or boy advantage, by level of education and region
Source: UNICEF Education Pathway Analysis database (2021)
In emergency countries, disparities in girls’ and boys’ educational trajectories are stark.
In addition to looking at countries by region, it is also possible to group countries according to whether they are designated “emergency” countries or not (Fig. 4). Emergency countries are ones in which there are disruptions to everyday living because of conflict or natural disasters. In these emergency countries, boys started out having an advantage, and retained this advantage throughout the transition to lower and upper secondary school. Of note, however, girls gained the advantage in 38 per cent of emergency countries by the transition to upper secondary, whereas they did not have an advantage in any countries during either primary or lower secondary school. In non-emergency countries, alternatively, children’s educational journeys began in most instances with gender parity, but girls gradually attained the advantage in the majority of countries as they transitioned to upper secondary school, although boys gained the advantage in a number of countries as well.
Percentage of countries with gender parity in school enrollment, girl advantage, or boy advantage, by level of education and emergency status
Source: UNICEF Education Pathway Analysis database (2021)
The findings from the education pathway gender analysis reveal several important points. One is that across most countries (80 out of the 103), girls and boys began their education on par with one another, at least as far as entering primary school is concerned. The other is that although girls did not start out having an advantage in any country, as they transitioned to lower and upper secondary school, girls gradually surpassed boys in over half the countries analyzed. More boys also gained the advantage as they progressed through school in a number of countries, although the observed increase was much smaller. Boys tend to have a particularly strong advantage in emergency countries, especially in primary and lower secondary school.
While the great strides that girls have made in their educational journeys in many countries is something to be acknowledged, driven in part by the investments made over the past 25 years in girls’ education, it remains important to ensure that all children, regardless of gender, have equal opportunities to learn. This is especially true given the challenges that the COVID-10 pandemic has posed to education. Further data collection and analysis are needed to understand the gender-differentiated impacts of the pandemic on girls’ and boys’ educational trajectories so that appropriate policy responses can be implemented.
