Socioeconomic Determinants of Female Educational Attainment in Pakistan: Stage-Specific Evidence from a Multinomial Logit Analysis

Abstract

Gender disparities in educational attainment remain a defining structural impediment to human capital formation in South Asia. Despite constitutional commitments to universal schooling, Pakistan exhibits severe and cumulative female attrition across every educational transition, with tertiary participation among women among the lowest in the region. This study investigates the socioeconomic and demographic determinants of female educational attainment using nationally representative household data from the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (PSLM) Survey 2018–19 (N = 22,314 female respondents). A multinomial logistic regression framework models female educational outcomes across five hierarchical categories—primary, middle, secondary, higher secondary, and higher education—with higher education as the reference category. Six predictors are examined: age, residential region, marital status, annual household income, distance from institution, and educational expenditure. Results reveal that educational expenditure is the most pervasive barrier, exercising significant negative effects across three of four educational comparisons. Rural residence exerts an intensifying constraint that peaks at the higher secondary to tertiary transition. Household income becomes a binding and significant determinant specifically from the secondary level onward, while marital status constrains progression at the middle level only and distance matters exclusively at the tertiary threshold. These stage-specific findings carry direct implications for targeted scholarship design, rural institutional investment, and early marriage legislation in Pakistan. The 2018–19 data constitutes the most recent nationally representative provincial-level PSLM/HIES release with complete income, expenditure, and distance modules; the forthcoming HIES 2024–25 microdata will enable post-COVID comparison in future work.