PIP: Literature has been produced over the last fifteen years in Papua New Guinea (PNG) concerned with the increasing level of socioeconomic differentiation which has accompanied political independence. Consensus exists that postcolonial PNG is experiencing increasing disparities in education, wealth, political power, and the general set of benefits typically associated with development and modernization. This author argues that studies of such growing socioeconomic stratification in the country have ignored or dismissed gender as a source of inequality. She focuses upon educational opportunity as the key to wealth and political power and shows that the most educationally disadvantaged group in PNG is rural women. Data to support her thesis are drawn from national censuses, the author's field work in the area of Madang Province, and literature on stratification. The national census includes data from both lowland and highland populations. Since the authors' field site is culturally and ecologically highland, however, the paper focuses upon the highlands, using data from nonhighland areas primarily for comparative purposes.