[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecoedu/v99y2024ics0272775724000037.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Closing the gap: Effect of a gender quota on women’s access to education in Afghanistan

Author

Listed:
  • Najam, Rafiuddin
Abstract
Affirmative action is a promising solution to the crucial challenge of bridging the gap in women’s access to higher education in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). I use public universities’ matriculation data from 2013–2018 and difference-in-differences estimators to examine the causal impact of a gender quota on women’s educational opportunities in Afghanistan. The quota increased the proportion of women in the treated concentration group by nine percentage points and the share of women from low socio-economic status by three percentage points. The expansion was associated with a 0.04-unit decline in the average score ratio of female-to-male applicants, driven by a reduction in the score threshold needed for women’s admission. The effects were condensed in competitive concentrations, where the overall share of women and women with low SES increased by 17 and four percentage points, respectively. The findings suggest that affirmative action is a viable option for addressing the gender gap in fragile settings.

Suggested Citation

  • Najam, Rafiuddin, 2024. "Closing the gap: Effect of a gender quota on women’s access to education in Afghanistan," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:99:y:2024:i:c:s0272775724000037
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2024.102509
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775724000037
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econedurev.2024.102509?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jennifer R. Peck, 2017. "Can Hiring Quotas Work? The Effect of the Nitaqat Program on the Saudi Private Sector," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 316-347, May.
    2. Fernanda Estevan & Thomas Gall & Louis-Philippe Morin, 2019. "Redistribution Without Distortion: Evidence from an Affirmative Action Programme at a Large Brazilian University," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(619), pages 1182-1220.
    3. Clément de Chaisemartin & Xavier D'Haultfœuille, 2020. "Two-Way Fixed Effects Estimators with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(9), pages 2964-2996, September.
    4. David Card & Alan B. Krueger, 2005. "Would the Elimination of Affirmative Action Affect Highly Qualified Minority Applicants? Evidence from California and Texas," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 58(3), pages 416-434, April.
    5. Cassan, Guilhem, 2019. "Affirmative action, education and gender: Evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 51-70.
    6. Mark C. Long, 2004. "Race and College Admissions: An Alternative to Affirmative Action?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(4), pages 1020-1033, November.
    7. Thiemo Fetzer & Pedro C. L. Souza & Oliver Vanden Eynde & Austin L. Wright, 2021. "Security Transitions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(7), pages 2275-2308, July.
    8. Ben Backes, 2012. "Do Affirmative Action Bans Lower Minority College Enrollment and Attainment?: Evidence from Statewide Bans," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 47(2), pages 435-455.
    9. Jessica S. Howell, 2010. "Assessing the Impact of Eliminating Affirmative Action in Higher Education," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(1), pages 113-166, January.
    10. Le Kien & Nguyen My, 2021. "How Education Empowers Women in Developing Countries," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 21(2), pages 511-536, April.
    11. Larry L. Howard & Nishith Prakash, 2012. "Do employment quotas explain the occupational choices of disadvantaged minorities in India?," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(4), pages 489-513, August.
    12. Mitra Akhtari & Natalie Bau & Jean-William Laliberté, 2024. "Affirmative Action and Precollege Human Capital," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 1-32, January.
    13. Surendrakumar Bagde & Dennis Epple & Lowell Taylor, 2016. "Does Affirmative Action Work? Caste, Gender, College Quality, and Academic Success in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(6), pages 1495-1521, June.
    14. David Neumark & Harry Holzer, 2000. "Assessing Affirmative Action," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(3), pages 483-568, September.
    15. Roland G. Fryer Jr. & Glenn C. Loury, 2005. "Affirmative Action and Its Mythology," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(3), pages 147-162, Summer.
    16. Galdo Virgilio & Acevedo Gladys Lopez & Rama Martin, 2021. "Conflict and the composition of economic activity in Afghanistan," IZA Journal of Development and Migration, Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 12(1), pages 1-23, January.
    17. Kate Antonovics & Ben Backes, 2014. "The Effect of Banning Affirmative Action on College Admissions Policies and Student Quality," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 49(2), pages 295-322.
    18. Mohammad Niaz Asadullah, 2006. "Returns to Education in Bangladesh," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(4), pages 453-468.
    19. Caitlin Knowles Myers, 2007. "A Cure for Discrimination? Affirmative Action and the Case of California's Proposition 209," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 60(3), pages 379-396, April.
    20. Sun, Liyang & Abraham, Sarah, 2021. "Estimating dynamic treatment effects in event studies with heterogeneous treatment effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 175-199.
    21. Bertrand, Marianne & Hanna, Rema & Mullainathan, Sendhil, 2010. "Affirmative action in education: Evidence from engineering college admissions in India," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 16-29, February.
    22. Peter Arcidiacono & Michael Lovenheim, 2016. "Affirmative Action and the Quality-Fit Trade-Off," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(1), pages 3-51, March.
    23. Klasik, Daniel & Cortes, Kalena E., 2022. "Uniform admissions, unequal access: Did the top 10% plan increase access to selective flagship institutions?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    24. Vieira, Renato Schwambach & Arends-Kuenning, Mary, 2019. "Affirmative action in Brazilian universities: Effects on the enrollment of targeted groups," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    25. Dennis Epple & Richard Romano & Holger Sieg, 2008. "Diversity and Affirmative Action in Higher Education," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 10(4), pages 475-501, August.
    26. George Psacharopoulos & Harry Anthony Patrinos, 2018. "Returns to investment in education: a decennial review of the global literature," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(5), pages 445-458, September.
    27. Basihos, Seda, 2016. "Nightlights as a Development Indicator: The Estimation of Gross Provincial Product (GPP) in Turkey," MPRA Paper 75553, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 09 Sep 2016.
    28. Peter Hinrichs, 2012. "The Effects of Affirmative Action Bans on College Enrollment, Educational Attainment, and the Demographic Composition of Universities," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(3), pages 712-722, August.
    29. Hinrichs, Peter, 2014. "Affirmative action bans and college graduation rates," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 43-52.
    30. Beyer,Robert Carl Michael & Chhabra,Esha & Galdo,Virgilio & Rama,Martin G., 2018. "Measuring districts'monthly economic activity from outer space," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8523, The World Bank.
    31. Callaway, Brantly & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C., 2021. "Difference-in-Differences with multiple time periods," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 200-230.
    32. Till Raphael Sanger & Ethan B. Kapstein & Ronnie Sircar, 2022. "Estimating the Collapse of Afghanistan’s Economy Using Nightlights Data," Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC) Working Papers 34, Empirical Studies of Conflict Project.
    33. Alon, Sigal & Malamud, Ofer, 2014. "The impact of Israel's class-based affirmative action policy on admission and academic outcomes," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 123-139.
    34. Rafiuddin Najam & Alison Johnston, 2023. "Information provision and preferences toward tuition introduction in public universities: evidence from a survey experiment in Afghanistan," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(6), pages 649-663, November.
    35. Chaaban, Jad & Cunningham, Wendy, 2011. "Measuring the economic gain of investing in girls : the girl effect dividend," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5753, The World Bank.
    36. Ursula Mello, 2022. "Centralized Admissions, Affirmative Action, and Access of Low-Income Students to Higher Education," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 166-197, August.
    37. Prakash, Nishith, 2020. "The Impact of Employment Quotas on the Economic Lives of Disadvantaged Minorities in India," IZA Discussion Papers 13847, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    38. Fernanda Estevan & Thomas Gall & Louis-Philippe Morin, 2019. "Corrigendum: Redistribution Without Distortion: Evidence from an Affirmative Action Programme at a Large Brazilian University," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(619), pages 1220-1220.
    39. Gaurav Khanna, 2020. "Does Affirmative Action Incentivize Schooling? Evidence from India," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(2), pages 219-233, May.
    40. Rakesh Basant & Gitanjali Sen, 2020. "Quota-Based Affirmative Action in Higher Education: Impact on Other Backward Classes in India," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(2), pages 336-360, February.
    41. Peter Arcidiacono & Michael Lovenheim & Maria Zhu, 2015. "Affirmative Action in Undergraduate Education," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 487-518, August.
    42. Andrew M. Francis & Maria Tannuri-Pianto, 2012. "Using Brazil’s Racial Continuum to Examine the Short-Term Effects of Affirmative Action in Higher Education," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 47(3), pages 754-784.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Najam, Rafiuddin & Patrinos, Harry Anthony & Kattan, Raja Bentaouet, 2024. "The Mis-Education of Women in Afghanistan: From Wage Premiums to Economic Losses," IZA Discussion Papers 17279, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vieira, Renato Schwambach & Arends-Kuenning, Mary, 2019. "Affirmative action in Brazilian universities: Effects on the enrollment of targeted groups," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    2. Oliveira, Rodrigo & Santos, Alei & Severnini, Edson, 2024. "Bridging the gap: Mismatch effects and catch-up dynamics under a Brazilian college affirmative action program," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    3. Priscila S. dos Santos & Kalinca L. Becker & Sibele V. de Oliveira, 2023. "Race‐based affirmative action for higher education in Brazil: Impact assessment on performance, time, and delay in completion," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 247-267, February.
    4. Subedi, Mukti Nath & Rafiq, Shuddhasattwa & Ulker, Aydogan, 2022. "Effects of Affirmative Action on Educational and Labour Market Outcomes: Evidence from Nepal's Reservation Policy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 443-463.
    5. Bleemer, Zachary, 2023. "Affirmative action and its race-neutral alternatives," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    6. Cecilia Machado & Germ'an Reyes & Evan Riehl, 2023. "The Direct and Spillover Effects of Large-scale Affirmative Action at an Elite Brazilian University," Papers 2305.02513, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2023.
    7. Cecilia Machado & Germán Reyes & Evan Riehl, 2023. "The Efficacy of Large-Scale Affirmative Action at Elite Universities," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0311, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    8. Prakash, Nishith, 2020. "The Impact of Employment Quotas on the Economic Lives of Disadvantaged Minorities in India," IZA Discussion Papers 13847, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Peter Arcidiacono & Michael Lovenheim, 2016. "Affirmative Action and the Quality-Fit Trade-Off," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(1), pages 3-51, March.
    10. Fernanda Estevan & Thomas Gall & Louis-Philippe Morin, 2019. "Redistribution Without Distortion: Evidence from an Affirmative Action Programme at a Large Brazilian University," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(619), pages 1182-1220.
    11. Prakash, Nishith, 2020. "The impact of employment quotas on the economic lives of disadvantaged minorities in India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 494-509.
    12. Francis-Tan, Andrew & Tannuri-Pianto, Maria, 2018. "Black Movement: Using discontinuities in admissions to study the effects of college quality and affirmative action," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 97-116.
    13. Peter Hinrichs, 2020. "Affirmative Action and Racial Segregation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63(2), pages 239-267.
    14. Surendrakumar Bagde & Dennis Epple & Lowell Taylor, 2016. "Does Affirmative Action Work? Caste, Gender, College Quality, and Academic Success in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(6), pages 1495-1521, June.
    15. Zachary Bleemer, 2022. "Affirmative Action, Mismatch, and Economic Mobility after California’s Proposition 209," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 137(1), pages 115-160.
    16. Moeeni, Safoura & Wei, Feng, 2022. "The labor market returns to unobserved skills: Evidence from a gender quota," CLEF Working Paper Series 53, Canadian Labour Economics Forum (CLEF), University of Waterloo.
    17. de Silva, Tiloka & Gothama, Supun & Premakumara, Priyantha, 2021. "Admissions quotas in university education: Targeting and mismatch under Sri Lanka’s affirmative action policy," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    18. Machado, Cecilia & Reyes, Germán & Riehl, Evan, 2022. "Alumni Job Networks at Elite Universities and the Efficacy of Affirmative Action," IZA Discussion Papers 15026, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Soledad Giardili, 2018. "University Quotas and Peers’ Achievement," Working Papers 854, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    20. Mitra Akhtari & Natalie Bau & Jean-William Laliberté, 2024. "Affirmative Action and Precollege Human Capital," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 1-32, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Affirmative action; Gender; Women’s education; Access; Afghanistan;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:99:y:2024:i:c:s0272775724000037. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/econedurev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.