  The article tries to compare urban and rural literacy of fifteen selected
Indian states during 1981 - 2011 and explores the instruments which can reduce
the disparity in urban and rural educational attainment. The study constructs
Sopher's urban-rural differential literacy index to analyze the trends of
literacy disparity across fifteen states in India over time. Although literacy
disparity has decreased over time, Sopher's index shows that the states of
Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Odisha, Maharashtra and even Karnataka
faced high inequality in education between urban and rural India in 2011.
Additionally, the Fixed Effect panel data regression technique has been applied
in the study to identify the factors which influence urban-rural inequality in
education. The model shows that the following factors can reduce literacy
disparity between urban and rural areas of India: low fertility rate in rural
women, higher percentages of rural females marrying after the age of 21 years,
mother's educational attainment and their labour force participation rate in
rural areas.
