How Socio-Economic Heterogeneity within Urban Slums Affects Educational Attainment: A Comparison of Egypt and India

Mark R. Montgomery, Population Council
Rania Roushdy, Population Council
Monica Grant, Population Council
Barbara Mensch, Population Council

This paper will examine the role of household and neighborhood poverty as determinants of children’s schooling in urban Egypt and India. We draw upon data recently collected by the Egyptian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS), which provides detailed information on children’s schooling and includes a large supplementary sample of slum-dwellers in Cairo, and a census of slum-dwellers in 13 (of 143) slum districts of Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, collected by the Population Council. In the analysis, we consider a four-fold classification of families: poor families living in largely poor neighborhoods; poor families living in mixed neighborhoods; non-poor families living in poor neighborhoods; and non-poor families in mixed neighborhoods. The results will shed light on whether “slums” as defined in the Egyptian and Indian contexts provide an appropriate geographic basis for the targeting of educational investments.