Gender in Low and Middle-Income Countries

How do girls and boys in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) in the majority world vary with respect to central indicators of child growth and mortality, parental caregiving, discipline and violence, and child labor? How do key indicators of national gender equity and economic development relate to gender similarities and differences in each of these substantive areas of child development? This monograph of the SRCD is concerned with central topics of child gender, gendered parenting, gendered environments, and gendered behaviors and socializing practices in the underresearched and underserved world of LMIC. To examine protective and risk factors related to child gender in LMIC around the world, we used data from more than 2 million individuals in 400,000 families in 41 LMIC collected in the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, a household survey that includes nationally representative samples of participating countries. In the fi rst chapter of this monograph, we describe the conceptual "gender similarities" and "bioecological" frameworks that helped guide the monograph. In the second chapter, we detail the general methodology adhered to in the substantive chapters. Then, in topical chapters, we describe the situations of girls and boys with successive foci on child growth and mortality, parental caregiving, family discipline and violence, and child labor. We conclude with a general discussion of fi ndings from the substantive chapters in the context of gender and bioecological theories.

Across 41 LMIC and four substantive areas of child development, few major gender differences emerged. Our data support a gender similarities view and suggest that general emphases on early child gender differences may be overstated at least for the developing world of LMIC.

Marc H. Bornstein, Ph.D., is Senior Investigator and Head of Child and Family Research at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. He has published in experimental, methodological, comparative, developmental, and cultural science as well as neuroscience, pediatrics, and aesthetics.

Robert H. Bradley, Ph.D. is Professor and Director of the Family and Human Dynamics Research Institute at Arizona State University. His research focuses on family environments, child care and early education, with emphasis on how each is implicated in children’s development. He is also involved in developing measures of the home environment.

Kirby Deater-Deckard, Ph.D., is Professor and Director of Developmental Science in Psychology at Virginia Tech. He conducts research on the intergenerational transmission and development of social-emotional and cognitive attributes, with emphasis on parenting and gene-environment processes.

Jennifer E. Lansford, Ph.D., is Research Professor in the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University. Her research focuses on the development of aggression and other behavior problems in children and adolescents, with an  mphasis on how family, peer, and cultural contexts contribute to or protect against these outcomes.

Diane L. Putnick, Ph.D., is a researcher and statistician with the Child and Family Research Section of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Her research interests include child and family processes across cultures.

Kofi Marfo is Professor and Founding Director, Institute for Human Development, Aga Khan University (East Africa, South-Central Asia, and United Kingdom). His scholarly interests include developmental science and practice, advancement of a global science of human development, and philosophical issues in behavioral science and education research. He coleads an African child development research capacity enhancement initiative, co-convenes the African Child Development Scholars Workshop series, and has most recently co-edited Child Development in Africa: Views from inside (Serpell and Marfo, 2014), a volume in New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development.