Gender Inequality and Early Childhood Development

This Plan International document reviews linkages between early childhood development (ECD) and gender, in order to address the following questions:

"Why is the development that occurs in the early years of such critical importance for the rights and wellbeing of girls and boys as they progress into adulthood?

Why do gender inequality and discrimination matter so much for early childhood development?

Why do Early Childhood Development programmes and services offer so much potential to promote the rights of girls and boys, and gender equality?"

In the first section, "Early childhood matters", communication aspects include the fact that the early years show the most rapid development and learning that later influence literacy, numeracy, and social and economic participation. Children can "develop a sense of self-worth, identity and belonging, and learn the beliefs, norms and expectations of their community and society." However, despite the fact that deficits in these ECD years cannot be made up, "...43% of the under-fives growing up in low- and middle income countries – will probably not develop to their full potential because they grow up facing... poverty; poor health and under-nutrition; inadequate responsive care and learning opportunities provided within the home; exposure to violence, abuse and neglect; and lack of access to quality Early Childhood Development (ECD) services, including pre-primary schooling." 

The second section, "Gender equality and women’s rights matter for early childhood development", describes inadequacies in antenatal and maternal care, citing concerns that gender inequality is linked to " high-risk pregnancies and in turn to high maternal mortality and ill health." Nutritional deprivation, poor mental and physical health post-delivery, and low education levels of mothers affect their children. Men's unequal role as caregivers, absence, neglect, abandonment of families, and their exclusive control and authority in families deprive women of agency. Obstacles to men's participation include cultural norms such as: "good" fatherhood as being authoritarian, a perception that men are not good caregivers by nature, and men's need to migrate for employment. Policy level remedies include: valuing care work at the national level; adding care work value to the country’s estimated gross domestic product (GDP); including women in the workforce; expanding early childhood care and education (ECCE) services; adding paternity leave as a social protection policy; and including men in initiatives such as conditional cash transfer programmes linked to domestic work. Generation of household income by women and protection from intimate partner violence are also critical to gender equality affecting girls and their early development.

"Son preference matters" discusses perceptions about the value of sons’ income potential, preservation of family line, religious ritual, and defense and protection of family.  Son preference can result in nutritional stunting of girls, female infanticide, early engagement of young girls in household tasks, and lack of girls’ school enrolment. 

"Early gender socialisation matters" reviews the importance of role modelling and cultural changes. The section cites a review of education policy that found scarce teacher training in gender integration in 40 developing countries and a scarcity of gender sensitive curricula. Plan's gender analysis of its own ECD and early primary programmes found a disproportionate percentage of males in senior roles, teachers using stereotyping in assigning tasks to students, allowance of male disruption as an excuse for gender separation or boy domination of play areas, and teacher preference of girls due to assumptions of cooperation and ability to learn.

In the concluding section, "Early childhood development programming matters ", gender transformative ECD programming is described as a critical equaliser and opportunity for parents,  caregivers, families, community leaders and educators to learn about gender-equal socialisation and non-discrimination. It can give mothers a chance for peer support and solidarity networking, as well as time for employment, which can positively affect household power dynamics, and it can influence men's engagement as caregivers.