Does Economic Class Affect Educational Achievement in India?

Abstract

This article examines how economic class disparities shape learning outcomes among children. It uses data from the India Human Development Survey-II (IHDS-II), 2011–2012 to analyse the gap in educational achievement in reading, writing and mathematics between classes for children aged 8–11 in India. Additionally, it considers the impact of household conducive factors, child effort variables and school factors that contribute to achievement as well as in reducing the gaps between the socio-economic classes. The results indicate a substantial test score gap between the groups, with the gap between the comfortable and poor classes being 2.5 times higher than the gap between the comfortable and middle class. After taking into account the socio-economic status index, we find that there is a 50% reduction in the test scores gap between the wealthy and the poor class, and that the gap between the comfortable and middle classes is no longer significant in any test scores. Even after accounting for all covariates, the gap between the wealthy and poor classes is still significant in mathematics and writing; however, middle-class children perform marginally better than those from the comfortable class in reading.