To what extent did sub-Saharan Africa's twentieth century schooling revolution benefit boys and girls equally? Using census data and a cohort approach, we examine gender gaps in years of education over the twentieth century at world region, country and district levels. First, we find that compared to other developing regions, Africa had a small initial educational gender gap but subsequently made the least progress in closing the gap. Second, in most of the 21 African countries studied, gender gaps increased during most of the colonial era (ca. 1880–1960) and declined, albeit at different rates, after independence. At the world region and country level, the expansion of men's education was initially associated with a growing gender gap, and subsequently a decline, a pattern we refer to as “educational gender Kuznets curve.” Third, using data from six decadal cohorts across 1,177 birth districts, we explore subnational correlates of educational gender inequality. This confirms the inverse-U relationship between the gender gap and male education. We also find that districts with railroads, more urbanization and early twentieth century Christian missions witnessed lower attainment gaps. We find no evidence that cash crop cultivation, agricultural division of labor or family systems were linked to gender gaps.

中文翻译：

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撒哈拉以南非洲的教育性别不平等：长期视角

撒哈拉以南非洲 20 世纪的教育革命在多大程度上使男孩和女孩平等受益？使用人口普查数据和队列方法，我们研究了 20 世纪世界地区、国家和地区各级教育年数的性别差距。首先，我们发现与其他发展中地区相比，非洲最初的教育性别差距很小，但随后在缩小差距方面取得的进展最小。其次，在所研究的 21 个非洲国家中的大多数国家，性别差距在殖民时代（约 1880-1960 年）的大部分时间里都在增加，而在独立后则以不同的速度下降。在世界区域和国家层面，男性教育的扩张最初与不断扩大的性别差距有关，随后又下降，我们将这种模式称为“教育性别库兹涅茨曲线”。第三，使用来自 1,177 个出生地区的六个十年队列的数据，我们探索了教育性别不平等的次国家相关性。这证实了性别差距与男性教育之间的倒 U 关系。我们还发现，拥有铁路、更多城市化和 20 世纪早期基督教传教区的地区的成就差距较小。我们没有发现任何证据表明经济作物种植、农业分工或家庭制度与性别差距有关。