The Impact of sex-separate toilets on school participation of pubescent-age girls in India

Abstract

The issue of sanitation is related to the academic achievement of students in developing countries. Above all, sex-separate sanitation facilities in schools play a crucial role when it comes to students’ ability to focus on their studies, particularly for girls just at the beginning of puberty. This paper examines the association between girls’ toilets and school participation by adolescent girls in India using a state-level panel data set. To control for potential omitted variables bias, I adopt state fixed effects among control variables. I have two major findings. First, schools with sex-separate toilets are associated with a higher level of girls’ enrolment at the secondary and the higher secondary level. Second, schools with sex-separate toilets are also associated with a higher level of school attendance by girls at the secondary level.