Reproducibility package for Convergence or Reversal? The Evolution of the Gender Gap in Education in Sub-Saharan Africa

Despite the rapid expansion of education in Sub-Saharan Africa, the evolution of gender gaps between generations remains poorly documented at the regional scale. Using harmonized DHS and MICS data from 35 countries covering approximately 736,000 individuals, complemented by PASEC test scores for 14 francophone countries, this study traces gender differences in educational attainment and learning outcomes by birth cohort. Gender gaps in attainment narrow substantially across cohorts, with the female disadvantage falling from about 13-15 percentage points in primary and secondary attendance and 1.9 years of schooling among those born in the 1970s to near zero and statistically insignificant for those born after 1999. Gender gaps in learning outcomes vary widely across countries, with no uniform direction of disadvantage in either reading or mathematics. Country-level analyses show that females exceed males in secondary attendance and years of education in most countries among those born after 1999, and that gender gaps in learning outcomes are similarly heterogeneous across countries. Convergence in some contexts coincides with stagnation or deterioration in boys' secondary attendance rather than uniform gains for girls. Aggregate trends mask pronounced heterogeneity, with larger gaps persisting among rural, poorer, and Muslim populations.