Gender Disparity in Literacy What Influences More: Region or Religion (Islam)?

The influence of religion, especially Islam upon gender disparity has been debated for long. Some scholars have cited some of the Islamic values as the cause of high percentage of gender disparity in the Islamic countries, whereas other scholars attribute it more to other factors. Using secondary source data, this paper tries to analyze if gender disparity in literacy is influenced more by regional differences or on the basis of religion (Islam). It uses UNSD reports for youth and adult literacy to compare the countries at world and region (continent) level. Analysis through descriptive and inferential statistics (independent T test) shows that although at the world level, Islamic countries have significantly higher gender disparity; at regional level, such differences appear in Africa only. The differences between Islamic and non-Islamic Countries are so significant in Africa that they influence and change the overall picture at the world level. Further analysis reveal that Africa itself is the only region where gender disparity is significantly higher as compared to all other continents in both adult and youth literacy. If the differences were due to the influence of Islam, the same pattern should have been observed in the other continents as well; but the results indicate that those differences might be due to regional factors other than religion.