This stufy delves into the factors influencing the preference for private education among households, with a particular focus on quantifying inter and intra-group disparities in private education attainment in India. Leveraging data from the Indian Household Development Survey II, specifically focusing on children aged 8 to 11, our study employs confirmatory factor analysis to construct psychometric indicators of school experience and perception. Through Fairlie decomposition, we dissect observed disparities across gender, region, and caste. Our findings suggest that positive school experience and negative school perception are correlated with the likelihood of a child attending a private school in India. Notably, we identify a higher rural-urban disparity (33%) compared to gender-based disparity (9.6%) in private school attainment. Moreover, disparities in private education attainment are pronounced among Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs), with our analysis revealing a discrepancy of 20.5% and 26.5% respectively, as compared to other castes. Furthermore, we highlight household wealth and income indicators as significant drivers of these disparities. However, interaction analysis indicates that policy interventions aimed at increasing asset endowment could mitigate disparities across regions and genders, suggesting that improvements in income and asset ownership could effectively bridge the gap in private education in India. 

Ongoing Research