Gender and Premarket Discrimination in Rural Punjab, India: Evidence from the NSSO’s 75th Round on Education

Access to premarket resources, such as education, depends on multiple socio-economic and demographic factors that encompass determinants like age, gender, caste, income, and occupational status. Notwithstanding the clarion call for ‘leaving no one behind’ under the SDG framework, educational and skill gaps at the inter-gender level continue to persist in rural India. In the case of rural Punjab, India, this article presents a modest attempt to examine the issue of gender-based premarket discrimination in access to formal education and skilling. Utilizing data from the National Sample Survey Organization’s (NSSO) 75th Round on Social Consumption in Education (2017–2018), two binary logistic models were formulated to analyze the role played by gender in an individual’s access to general and technical education (TE). The odds ratios estimated in both models suggest that a female’s odds of accessing formal and skill-based TE are 39% and 30% lower than their male counterparts, ceteris paribus . Thus, the analyses support our hypothesis of gender-based premarket discrimination in access to education and skilling in rural Punjab. To sustain a developmental model rooted in equity, addressing these gender-based inequalities will be of paramount importance in Punjab’s growth story.