Getting the Bias Wrong: Educational Opportunities for Boys and Girls in Mexico
Abstract
The First National Survey on Discrimination in Mexico, conducted in 2004, reported that 15 out of every 100 parents think they should not invest in their daughter´s education because they will ultimately get married and it will be a waste of money. Using data from the Mexican Income-Expenditure Survey waves of 1992, 1998 and 2004, we did not find enough statistical evidence to support the idea that families provide less education to their 15 to 18 years old daughters. In fact, contrary to common belief, our results suggest the existence of a small pro-girl discrimination in education access at secondary school.
References
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[32] Jabob, B. A. 2002. Where the boys aren't: non-cognitive skills, returns to school and the gender gap in higher education. Economics of Education Review 21(6): 589-98.
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[34] Lancaster, G., Maitra, P. and Ray, R. 2008. Household expenditure patterns and gender bias: evidence from selected Indian states. Oxford Development Studies 36(2): 133-57.
[35] Liang, K. L., and Zeger, S.L. 1986. Longitudinal data analysis using generalised linear models. Biometrika 73(1): 13-22.
[36] Lopes, M. G., and Fernandes, G.L. 2010. Success/Failure in Higher Education: How Long Does it Take to Complete Some 1st. Year Disciplines? Journal of Research in Educational Sciences 1(1): 32-50.
[37] Lopez, G. 2008. Determinantes de la matricula en la escuela secundaria en México. El Trimestre Económico LXXI (1) (January - March 2008): 215 - 45.
[38] Lundberg, S., and Pollak, R.A. 1993. Separate spheres barganing and the marriage market. The Journal of Political Economy 101(6): 988-2010.
[39] Manser, M., and Brown, M. 1980. Marriage and household decision-making: A bargaining analysis. International Economic Review 21(1): 31-44.
[40] Mayer, D., and Cordourier, G. 2001.
La Brecha salarial y la
teoria de igualdad de
oportunidades
.
Un estudio d
e Género para el caso Mexicano.
El Trimestre Económico
LXVIII (1), no. 269 (January
-
March 2001): 71
-
107.
[41] McElroy, M. B., and Horney, M.J. 1981. Nash-bargained households decisions: Toward a generalization of the theory of demand. International Economic Review 229(2): 333-49.
[42] Neuhaus, J. M., Kalbfleisch, J.D. and Hauck, W.W. 1991. A Comparison of cluster-specific and population-averaged approaches for analyzing correlated binary data. International Statistics Review 59(1): 25-35.
[43] Parish, W. L., and Willis, R. 1993. Daughters, education and family budgets taiwan experiences. Journal of Human Resources 28(4): 863-98.
[44] Park, C. 2007. Marriage market, parents' bargaining powers, and children's nutrition and education. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 69(6): 773-93.
[45] Parker, S., and Pederzini, C. 2001. Education differences by gender in Mexico, in The Economics of Gender in Mexico: Work, Family, State and Market, edited by E. Katz and M. Correia. Washington, D.C. The World Bank.
[46] Parker, S., and Scott, J. 2001. Evaluación del Programa de Educación, Salud y Alimentación (PROGRESA) a partir de: Indicadores de Seguimiento y Evaluación 1998-2001. Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), Mimeo.
[47] Pindyck, R. S., and Rubinfeld, D. L. 1991. Econometric Models and Economic Forecasts. 3rd. Edition New York: McGraw-Hill.
[48] Pitt, M., Rosenzweig, M.R. and Hassan, N. 1990. Productivity, health and inequality in the intrahousehold distribution of food in low-income countries. American Economic Review 80(5): 1139-56.
[49] Prentice, R. L. 1988. Correlated binary regression with covariates specific to each binary observation. Biometrics 44(4): 1033-48.
[50] Quisumbing, A. R. 1994. Intergenerational transfers in Philippine rice villages: gender differences in traditional inheritance customs. Journal of Development Economics 43(2): 167-95.
[51] Ramanathan, R. 1992. Introductory Econometrics with Applications. 2nd. Edition. Fort Worth, TX: Dryden Press.
[52] Rosenzweig, M. R., and Schultz, T. P. 1982. Market opportunities, genetic endowments and the intrafamily distribution of resources: child survival in rural India. American Economic Review 72(4): 802-15.
[53] Saritaña, J. E. 2002. Rendimiento de la Escolaridad en México: Una Aplicación del Método de Vari ables Instrumentales para 1998. Gaceta de Economía (ITAM) Year 7(5) (Spring 2002): 85 - 125.
[54] Schultz, T. P. 1993. Investments in the schooling and health of women and men: quantities and returns. Journal of Human Resources 28(4): 694-734.
[55] Sen, A. K. 1984. Family and food: sex bias in poverty, in resources, values and development, by A. K. Sen, edited by A. K. Sen. Oxford: Basil Blackewll.
[56] Sen, A. K., and Sengupta, S. 1983. Malnutrition of rural children and the sex bias. Economic and Political Weekly 18(19): 855-64.
[57] Song, L. 2008. In search of gender bias in household resource allocarion in rural China. MPRA. Paper No. 8348.
[58] Svedberg, P. 1990. Undernutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa: Is there a Gender-Bias? Journal of Development Studies 26(3): 469-86.
[59] Thomas, D. 1990. Intra-household resource allocation: an inferential approach. Journal of Human Resources 25(4): 635-64.
[60] Ulph, D. T. 1988. A general non-cooperative Nash model of household consumption behavior. Economics, University of Bristol.
[61] Valdez, F. J. 1995. Condiciones del Mercado Laboral para Hombres y Mujeres en Área Metropolitana de Monterrey. El Asunto de la Discriminacion Salarial por Sexo. Undergraduate Thesis, Facultad de Economía, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León.
[62] Vella, F. 1999. Do Catholic schools make a difference? Evidence from Australia. The Journal of Human Resources 34(1) (Winter): 208-224.
[63] Ware, J. H., Lipsitz, S. and Speizer, F.E. 1988. Issues in the analysis of repeated categorical outcomes. Statistics in Medicine 7(1-2): 95-107.
[64] White, M. 1980. A heteroskedasticity-consistent covariance matrix estimator and a direct test for heteroskedasticity. Econometrica 48(4): 817-30.
[65] Wooley, F. 1993. A Cournot- Nash model of family decision making. Working Paper, Carleton University.
[2] Aguayo-Téllez, E., Chapa-Cantú J. , Rangel-González E., Treviño-Villarreal L., and Valero-Gil J. 2007. Gender-bias in education opportunities for population aged 12-18 in Mexico: 1992-2004. Perspectivas Sociales/Social Perspectives 9(1): 65-88.
[3] Alderman, H., Behrman J. R., Ross D. R., and Sabot R. 1996. Decomposing the gender gap in cognitive skills in a poor rural economy. Journal of Human Resources 31(1): 229-54.
[4] Anemya, T. 1981. Qualitative Response Models: A Survey. Journal of Econometric Literature 19(4): 1483-1536.
[5] Bardhan, P. K. 1984. On life and death questions: poverty and child mortality in rural India, in Land, Labour and Rural Poverty: Essays in Development Economics, by P. K. Bardhan. New York, NY, Columbia University Press, 1984.
[6] Becker, G. S. 1965. A Theory of the Allocation of Time. The Economic Journal 75(299): 493-517.
[7] Becker, G. S. 1981. A Treatise on The Family. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
[8] Behrman, J. R. 1993. Investing in female education for development. Journal of Educational Planning and Administration 90(1): 393-412.
[9] Behrman, J. R., Pollak R., and Taubman P.1982. Parental preferences and provision for progeny. Journal of Political Economy 90(1): 52-73.
[10] Berhman, J. R. 1988. Intrahousehold allocation of nutrients in rural India: are boys favored? Do parents exhibit inequal aversion? Oxford Economic Papers 40(1): 32-54.
[11] Berhman, J. R., Segupta P., and Todd P. 2001. Progressing through progresa: An impact assessment of a school subsidy experiment. Working Paper, Penn Institute for Economic Research, University of Pensilvania.
[12] Brinton, M. C. 1988. The social-institutional bases of gender stratification: Japan as an illustrative case. American Journal of Sociology 94(2): 300-34.
[13] Brown, P., Park. A. 2002. Education and poverty in rural China. Economics of Education Review 21(6): 523-41.
[14] Camero, C. 1995. Análisis de segregación y diferencias en el rendimiento a la escolaridad de acuerdo al sexo. Un estudio para el mercado laboral del area metropolitana de Monterrey. Undergraduate Thesis, Facultad de Economía, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo Len.
[15] Chiappori, P. A. 1992. Collective labor supply and welfare. The Journal of Political Economy 162(3): 437-67.
[16] Crouchely, R., and Davies R. B.. 1999. A Comparison of population average and random-effect models for the analysis of longitudinal count data with base-line information. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (Statistics in Society) 162(3): 331-47.
[17] Davies, J., and Zhang, J. 1995. Gender bias, investments in children, and bequests. International Economic Review 36(3): 795-818.
[18] Deolalikar, A. B. 1993. Gender differences in the returns to schooling and schooling enrollment rates in Indonesia. Journal of Human Resources 28(4): 899-932.
[19] Echeverria, C., and Merlo, A. 1999. Gender differences in education in a dynamic household bargaining model. International Economic Review: 265-86.
[20] Eicker, F. 1997. Limit theorems for regressions with unequal and dependent errors. Proceedings of the Fifth Berkeley Symposium on Mathematical Statistics and Probability 1967. 59-82.
[21] Evans, W. N., and Schuwab, R. M. 1995. Finishing high school and starting college: Do catholic schools make a difference. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 110(4): 941-74.
[22] Gangadharan, L., and Maitra, P. 2000. Does child mortality reflect gender bias? Evidence from Pakistan. Indian Economic Review 35(2):113-31.
[23] Garcia, L. M., and Bayer, A.E. 2005. Variations between Latino Groups in U.S. post-secondaty Educational attainments. Research in Higher Education 46(5): 511-33.
[24] Greene, W. H. 1993. Econometric Analysis. 2nd. Edition. New York: Macmillan.
[25] Griliches, Z. 1979. Sibling models and data in economics: Beginnings of a survey. Journal of Political Economy 87(5): S37-S64.
[26] Haddad, L., and Hoddinott, J. 1991. Gender aspects of household expenditures and resource allocation in the Cote D'Ivoire. Applied Economics Discussion Paper Series, no. 112.
[27] Haddad, L., Hoddinott, J. and Alderman, H. 1994. Intrahousehold resource allocation: an overview. Working Paper, Policy Research, World Bank, Washington, DC.
[28] Harris, B. 1990. The intrafamily distribution of hunger in South Asia, in The Political Economy of Hunger, Entitlement and Well-Being, edited by J. Dereze and A. K. Sen. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
[29] Hausian, Z. 2010. Gender disparity in completing school education in India over regions. Journal of Research in Educational Sciences 1(2): 75-94.
[30] Huber, P. J. 1967. The behavior of maximum likelihood estimates under non-standard conditions. Proceedings of the Fifth Berkeley Symposium on Mathematical Statistics and Probability: 221-33.
[31] Iyigun, M., and Walsh, R. 2007. Building the family nest: premarital investments, marriage markets, and spousal allocations. The Review of Economic Studies 74(2): 507-35.
[32] Jabob, B. A. 2002. Where the boys aren't: non-cognitive skills, returns to school and the gender gap in higher education. Economics of Education Review 21(6): 589-98.
[33] Knight, J., and Song, L. 2000. Differences in educational access in rural China. Department of Economics, University of Oxford, Mimeo, UK.
[34] Lancaster, G., Maitra, P. and Ray, R. 2008. Household expenditure patterns and gender bias: evidence from selected Indian states. Oxford Development Studies 36(2): 133-57.
[35] Liang, K. L., and Zeger, S.L. 1986. Longitudinal data analysis using generalised linear models. Biometrika 73(1): 13-22.
[36] Lopes, M. G., and Fernandes, G.L. 2010. Success/Failure in Higher Education: How Long Does it Take to Complete Some 1st. Year Disciplines? Journal of Research in Educational Sciences 1(1): 32-50.
[37] Lopez, G. 2008. Determinantes de la matricula en la escuela secundaria en México. El Trimestre Económico LXXI (1) (January - March 2008): 215 - 45.
[38] Lundberg, S., and Pollak, R.A. 1993. Separate spheres barganing and the marriage market. The Journal of Political Economy 101(6): 988-2010.
[39] Manser, M., and Brown, M. 1980. Marriage and household decision-making: A bargaining analysis. International Economic Review 21(1): 31-44.
[40] Mayer, D., and Cordourier, G. 2001.
La Brecha salarial y la
teoria de igualdad de
oportunidades
.
Un estudio d
e Género para el caso Mexicano.
El Trimestre Económico
LXVIII (1), no. 269 (January
-
March 2001): 71
-
107.
[41] McElroy, M. B., and Horney, M.J. 1981. Nash-bargained households decisions: Toward a generalization of the theory of demand. International Economic Review 229(2): 333-49.
[42] Neuhaus, J. M., Kalbfleisch, J.D. and Hauck, W.W. 1991. A Comparison of cluster-specific and population-averaged approaches for analyzing correlated binary data. International Statistics Review 59(1): 25-35.
[43] Parish, W. L., and Willis, R. 1993. Daughters, education and family budgets taiwan experiences. Journal of Human Resources 28(4): 863-98.
[44] Park, C. 2007. Marriage market, parents' bargaining powers, and children's nutrition and education. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 69(6): 773-93.
[45] Parker, S., and Pederzini, C. 2001. Education differences by gender in Mexico, in The Economics of Gender in Mexico: Work, Family, State and Market, edited by E. Katz and M. Correia. Washington, D.C. The World Bank.
[46] Parker, S., and Scott, J. 2001. Evaluación del Programa de Educación, Salud y Alimentación (PROGRESA) a partir de: Indicadores de Seguimiento y Evaluación 1998-2001. Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), Mimeo.
[47] Pindyck, R. S., and Rubinfeld, D. L. 1991. Econometric Models and Economic Forecasts. 3rd. Edition New York: McGraw-Hill.
[48] Pitt, M., Rosenzweig, M.R. and Hassan, N. 1990. Productivity, health and inequality in the intrahousehold distribution of food in low-income countries. American Economic Review 80(5): 1139-56.
[49] Prentice, R. L. 1988. Correlated binary regression with covariates specific to each binary observation. Biometrics 44(4): 1033-48.
[50] Quisumbing, A. R. 1994. Intergenerational transfers in Philippine rice villages: gender differences in traditional inheritance customs. Journal of Development Economics 43(2): 167-95.
[51] Ramanathan, R. 1992. Introductory Econometrics with Applications. 2nd. Edition. Fort Worth, TX: Dryden Press.
[52] Rosenzweig, M. R., and Schultz, T. P. 1982. Market opportunities, genetic endowments and the intrafamily distribution of resources: child survival in rural India. American Economic Review 72(4): 802-15.
[53] Saritaña, J. E. 2002. Rendimiento de la Escolaridad en México: Una Aplicación del Método de Vari ables Instrumentales para 1998. Gaceta de Economía (ITAM) Year 7(5) (Spring 2002): 85 - 125.
[54] Schultz, T. P. 1993. Investments in the schooling and health of women and men: quantities and returns. Journal of Human Resources 28(4): 694-734.
[55] Sen, A. K. 1984. Family and food: sex bias in poverty, in resources, values and development, by A. K. Sen, edited by A. K. Sen. Oxford: Basil Blackewll.
[56] Sen, A. K., and Sengupta, S. 1983. Malnutrition of rural children and the sex bias. Economic and Political Weekly 18(19): 855-64.
[57] Song, L. 2008. In search of gender bias in household resource allocarion in rural China. MPRA. Paper No. 8348.
[58] Svedberg, P. 1990. Undernutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa: Is there a Gender-Bias? Journal of Development Studies 26(3): 469-86.
[59] Thomas, D. 1990. Intra-household resource allocation: an inferential approach. Journal of Human Resources 25(4): 635-64.
[60] Ulph, D. T. 1988. A general non-cooperative Nash model of household consumption behavior. Economics, University of Bristol.
[61] Valdez, F. J. 1995. Condiciones del Mercado Laboral para Hombres y Mujeres en Área Metropolitana de Monterrey. El Asunto de la Discriminacion Salarial por Sexo. Undergraduate Thesis, Facultad de Economía, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León.
[62] Vella, F. 1999. Do Catholic schools make a difference? Evidence from Australia. The Journal of Human Resources 34(1) (Winter): 208-224.
[63] Ware, J. H., Lipsitz, S. and Speizer, F.E. 1988. Issues in the analysis of repeated categorical outcomes. Statistics in Medicine 7(1-2): 95-107.
[64] White, M. 1980. A heteroskedasticity-consistent covariance matrix estimator and a direct test for heteroskedasticity. Econometrica 48(4): 817-30.
[65] Wooley, F. 1993. A Cournot- Nash model of family decision making. Working Paper, Carleton University.
Published
2012-12-31
How to Cite
AGUAYO-TÉLLEZ, Ernesto et al.
Getting the Bias Wrong: Educational Opportunities for Boys and Girls in Mexico.
Journal of Research in Educational Sciences, [S.l.], v. 3, n. 1, p. 28 - 49, dec. 2012.
ISSN 2068-8407.
Available at: <https://journals.aserspublishing.eu/jres/article/view/9327>. Date accessed: 21 feb. 2026.
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