Rural girls in Pakistan: Constraints of policy and culture

This chapter makes use of two relatively new data sets to explore some of the factors still limiting girls’ participation in primary school, even in the context of the rapid growth of private primary schooling in rural Pakistan. The focus on primary school is justified by the fact that universal primary schooling remains an elusive goal in Pakistan, where large numbers of children, particularly girls, still never enroll in school, despite the very high estimated rates of return to primary completion (Behrman, Ross, and Sabot 2002).