The 19th Asia Pacific Research Prize (Iue Prize) winner: Dr. Masayoshi Okabe

- Summary -

  This doctoral dissertation is a compilation of the empirical studies exploring the issue of “boys’ underperformance” in education that seems to be emerging in developing countries. The dissertation comprises 10 chapters, of which eight are in three parts and two are in Appendices. Part I comprises introductory chapters. Chapter 1 provides introductory discussions and literature review. Chapter 2 explains the current educational system in the Philippines as a premise for subsequent chapters.
  Part II comprises two chapters that discuss the gender bias and the demand continuity for education, specifically using data collected in Bukidnon Province in Northern Mindanao Region by the International Food Policy Research Institute. The chapter’s econometric analyses show that an educational father-son preferential nexus is strong. Additionally, however, chapter 4 expands the framework of demands to higher educational levels compared to Chapter 3 and employs a sequential logit model analysis, which indicates that, like the father-son nexus discussed in Chapter 3, even the mother-daughter nexus positively influences the education level attained by a child. The latter nexus is stronger and more robust.
  Part III’s three chapters discuss further gendered heterogeneity in input activities for and outputs of education, the primary data of which were collected using the local language, Tagalog, by the author in Marinduque Province in 2017-2018. Chapters 5 and 6 quantify children’s time-allocation patterns, using econometric analyses. A child’s gender and the mothers’ labor-force participation (MLFP) were given special attention. Endogeneity-conscious analyses primarily found the pattern: Sons are both more playful and less studious than daughters if their mothers are working. These analyses also confirmed that the MLFPs were triggered considerably by the low level of their livelihoods, as represented by fathers’ insufficient earnings or unemployment. The daughters’ reverse behavioral patterns, that is, more pro-educational patterns compared to their sons, may be motivated by the role model of a working mother. Maternal involvement, particularly for sons, largely cannot be taken on by other family members, even in the extended family setting that is found widely in rural areas of the Philippines. The discussion reconfirms the need to situate the results regarding sons and such a “dual burden” of their mothers in a broader context of family dynamics.
  Chapter 7 explores gendered stereotypes perceived by teachers as score markers against students. We avail of the variations of blindness in rating systems between the NAT and teacher-rating report cards (RC). Results support the hypothesis that male students are systematically more likely to receive lower scores when they are evaluated in a non-blind rating system in which teachers know who the examinees are. Chapter 7 thus presents an insightful perspective about a channel in which Filipino schoolboys’ underperformance is further augmented through gender stereotypes perceived by the evaluators, in this case, the teachers. Chapter 8 gives a conclusion for the dissertation and summarizes policy implications. In addition to the main body of the dissertation, two Appendix Chapters are attached at the end of the dissertation to provide supplementary information.