Table 1. Baseline demographics and experience with menstruation.
| (1) Boys |
(2) | (3) | (4) | (5) | (6) Girls |
(7) | (8) | (9) | (10) | (11) Diff. |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Panel A: continuous variables | Mean | SD | Min | Max | N | Mean | SD | Min | Max | N | |
| Demographics | |||||||||||
| Age (years) | 15.92 | 1.58 | 13 | 22 | 382 | 15.21 | 1.52 | 10 | 22 | 458 | -0.71*** |
| Grade (secondary school 1-3) | 1.76 | 0.75 | 1 | 3 | 423 | 1.71 | 0.72 | 1 | 3 | 503 | -0.05 |
| Duration of residence (years) | 9.46 | 5.53 | 0 | 19 | 402 | 7.28 | 5.78 | 0 | 19 | 447 | -2.18*** |
| Monthly expenditure (1000s THS) | 21.10 | 30.64 | 0 | 300 | 334 | 6.67 | 17.34 | 0 | 300 | 361 | -14.43*** |
| Menstrual knowledge and peer teasing | |||||||||||
| Menstrual knowledge score index | 0.60 | 0.19 | 0 | 1 | 432 | 0.61 | 0.16 | 0 | 1 | 524 | 0.01 |
| No. male friends observed teasing | 0.37 | 0.99 | 0 | 5 | 419 | . | . | . | . | . | . |
| Panel B: binary variables (no = 0, yes = 1) | Share Yes | [95% CI] | N | Share Yes | [95% CI] | N | |||||
| Information on menstruation | |||||||||||
| Someone has told me about periods | 0.79 | 0.75 | 0.83 | 417 | 0.90 | 0.87 | 0.93 | 448 | 0.11*** | ||
| Received information from: | |||||||||||
| school curricula | 0.63 | 0.57 | 0.68 | 355 | 0.76 | 0.71 | 0.80 | 350 | 0.13*** | ||
| health worker | 0.59 | 0.54 | 0.65 | 355 | 0.80 | 0.75 | 0.83 | 396 | 0.20*** | ||
| informational pamphlet | 0.30 | 0.24 | 0.36 | 255 | 0.45 | 0.39 | 0.51 | 297 | 0.15*** | ||
| Internet | 0.26 | 0.21 | 0.31 | 325 | 0.40 | 0.35 | 0.46 | 323 | 0.14*** | ||
| Boys’ attitudes: Agree that girls… | |||||||||||
| should get married after menarche | 0.05 | 0.03 | 0.07 | 327 | . | . | . | . | . | ||
| are ready for sex after menarche | 0.32 | 0.27 | 0.37 | 320 | . | . | . | . | . | ||
| Boys’ period teasing | |||||||||||
| Has teased girls | 0.18 | 0.15 | 0.22 | 403 | . | . | . | . | . | ||
| Girls’ period teasing | |||||||||||
| Ever been teased about periods | . | . | . | . | 0.13 | 0.10 | 0.17 | 486 | . | ||
| Afraid of teasing: leaking | . | . | . | . | 0.80 | 0.76 | 0.83 | 441 | . | ||
| Afraid of teasing: odor | . | . | . | . | 0.87 | 0.84 | 0.90 | 435 | . | ||
| Number of participants | 432 | 524 | |||||||||
Notes: Welch test for unequal variance between groups in column 11.
* p < 0.10,
** p < 0.05,
*** p < 0.01.
Knowledge score index is the proportion of 10 questions about biological facts of menstruation answered correctly by the respondent. Given the skew distribution of monthly expenditure, we checked robustness of the significant gender difference by performing a t-test on natural log of monthly expenditure. The result still holds (p < 0.01).