While lower middle income countries have caught up majorly in terms of providing equal education opportunities for girls, low income countries continue to lag behind. As of 2021, only 38 percent of girls in poor, mainly African countries finished lower secondary school opposed to 43 percent of boys, a rate of just 0.89 females for every male.
According to World Bank data, the gender education gap in low income countries and lower middle income countries like India, Vietnam, Nigeria, Kenya or Egypt was similar by the mid-1980s at a rate of around 0.65 females per male, but has since improved to hit gender parity in the early 2010s. For upper middle income countries, like most in Latin America as well as China, Indonesia, South Africa or Turkey, this happened as early as 2004.
The World Bank reports that confounding factors of poverty and remote living as well as minority or disability status keep girls around the world from beginning or finishing their school education. This is despite the fact that girls outperform boys in many academic metrics, for example reading proficiency at the end of primary school or the likeliness of receiving a tertiary education.
Globally, around 88-89 percent of children in the relevant age group finished primary school in 2023, with girls still very much overrepresented among those never schooled. Around 75 percent of children of both sexes finished lower secondary school that year globally. The gap was largest in Afghanistan, with the share of boys receiving an 8th grade education being more than 30 percentage points higher than that of girls.
