Female Literacy: A Success Story of Maharashtra

This paper makes in-depth study of the level of literacy among females and the extent of gender disparity in literacy in different districts of rural and urban Maharashtra. This paper also shows impact of various selected socio-economic-demographic variables on female literacy rate (FLR) in rural and urban Maharashtra. A crude projection has been made to predict the time required for 100 percent literacy in India, Maharashtra and in its different districts. Multiple Regression Models are run on FLR of rural-urban population. The study reveals that male literacy rate, female work participation as marginal and main worker, decreasing Mean number of births, Percentage of Muslim Population and child mortality rate are having significant effect on FLR in urban Maharashtra whereas factors responsible for increase in female literacy rate are increasing male literacy rate, slowly decreasing female work participation as marginal and main worker, decreasing Percentage of Muslim Population in rural Maharashtra