Using estimates of schooling demand function and private rate of return to education by
gender derived from Household Integrated Economic Survey 2010-11, this paper attempts to
examine if there is any dynamics to define a differential behaviour across gender in enrolment
in Pakistan and if there is then what can be the possible cause of such discrepancies and how
can they be reduced. The first set of analysis focuses on the estimates of probability of
enrolment at primary, secondary and tertiary level of education by gender. Strong evidence for
higher likelihood of enrolment emerges only at the secondary level of education when the
gender is male. The behaviour of the determinants for these schooling demand functions at
different levels of education differs by gender. One such key variable is parental education,
which is more pronounced in case of mother’s education towards increasing the likelihood of
enrolment of girls at the primary and secondary level and of father’s education for boys at all
levels and girls at the tertiary level. Hence investing in female education today will not only
empower females today but as a positive externality will also lead to gender equity in
educational outcomes in the future. Besides this intergenerational externality of investment in
female education, the finding establishes that when conditional cash programmes are targeted
at mothers as a policy tool they become an effective measure in increasing current female
enrolment. Moreover the case for reducing gender disparities in educational outcomes is
further supported when we see how gender imbalance in educational attainment and female
labour force participation lead to discrepancies in the private rate of return to education by
gender. The varied estimates of private rate of returns to education for males and females show
that such deviations arise because the females labour force on average is much less educated
than males and hence if the object is to raise the rates of returns, a targeted policy for reducing
gender differences in enrolment at all levels of education primary, secondary and tertiary will
have to be implemented.