2026/07/23 by Tanmoy Majilla
paper · doi:10.1093/oep/gpag031
Abstract Gender disparities in mathematics emerge early in life and have important implications for educational attainment and labour market outcomes. Yet little evidence identifies the household mechanisms underlying these gaps. Using data on approximately 200,000 children in Pakistan, I document a gender gap in mathematics that is absent at age five but widens steadily thereafter. Exploiting within-family variation across siblings, I examine whether parental resource allocation contributes to these disparities. I find a negative birth-order gradient, with boys outperforming girls at every birth order, although the gender gap weakens among later-born children. Girls with elder brothers perform particularly poorly, and the gap is more pronounced in larger families. Parents also allocate fewer educational resources to daughters through lower private tuition expenditures. Together, the findings are consistent with preferential allocation toward elder sons interacting with household resource constraints, highlighting the role of family environments in shaping gender inequalities in human capital formation.