School Dropout in Rural Vietnam: Does Gender Matter

School Dropout in Rural Vietnam: Does Gender Matter?. theoretically related variables into the model individual motivation for school... Operation of Multilevel Model Program: HLM Hiera

School Dropout in Rural

Vietnam: Does Gender Matter?

Jianye Liu Population Study Center Sociology Department of UWO

Why this topic?

 Education is not only a human right, but is also

crucial to national, familial, and individual

development.

 It is a central concern in every developing country.

 While the enrollment of girls has increased in past decades, girls continue to be less likely to

complete their schooling.

 Why Vietnam?

Cultural practices

-Confucianism: women have lower status than men both

in family and society

-Patriarchal, Patrilineal and Patrilocal society

many of the values of Confucianism

resumed many of the values of Confucianism

- the kinship system

- son preference

Economic situation:

education system (no enough space for children in

schoool)

school system is mainly funded by local governments and the family

more than doubled in the 1990s

is needed both inside household and in the farm work

Theoretical framework

Data and Methodology

 Data

in 1997-98, a state representative survey

areas)

analysis

Methodology: Multilevel Model

characteristics affect individual behavior

theoretically related variables into the model (individual motivation for school)

Methodology: Multilevel Model

correlated because they experience common social settings

clusters

dependence ( Type І error)

sample, the inferences will be incorrect

Operation of Multilevel Model

 Program: HLM (Hierachical Linear Model)

 Two level model:

 Dependent variable:

 0= in school or have a secondary school diploma;

 1= out of school without a secondary school diploma

Empty (unconditional) model

 To gauge the magnitude of variation between communities in school dropout.

 Conclusion:

 School dropping out rate varied from community to community

 social and school contexts have significant effects.

 Multilevel model has to be used for the data analysis.

Conditional models

 Individual level:

 Gender matters: boys are less likely to drop out of school (almost half of the probability of girls), with all other things equal.

 The probability of school dropout increases with age and children’s labor participation

•Household level

1 The odds of school dropout decrease with the household

income and the proportion of household expenditures on

education

household, but decreases with the household size

children staying in school

Commune/ward context:

handicrafts increases the occurrence of school dropout

of commune/ward

School context:

1 The pyramid structure of school system results in a strict

selective process in children’s schooling

fees

Interaction term:

1 The interaction between gender and socioeconomic level of commune indicates that a gender difference in school dropout is more likely to appear in the undeveloped areas, narrows with the increase of human development level, and disappears in the

highly developed areas

2 The significant interaction between gender and the quality of teachers indicates that the gender gap in school dropout changes with the quality of teachers

Models for boys and girls:

Social, school, household covariates affect boys and girls

differently: eg Household income, size, school fees

Conclusion:

Gender really matters in school dropout both from the micro and macro prospects