The Benefits of Educating Women in the Developing World
Junior, Evan McClelland, is studying Biological and Agricultural Technology Management with a minor in Hunger Studies at Auburn University.
Education is a precursor to progress on both personal and societal scales. Without education, invention would be elusive, social movements usurped, and ideas unshared. In the last century, education has expanded mightily across the world, with important reforms in areas such as equal access, comprehensiveness, and recently the explosion of virtual and remote learning, further pushing the boundaries of who and where education can reach.1 Despite such strides, a huge demographic in the developing world remains excluded from the benefits of education: Women. Educating women is important to the health and safety for women, child wellbeing, and economic growth.
“Children born to mothers with 12 years of education are more than 30% less likely to die.”
By focusing on retaining female students, schools can help to deconstruct restrictive gender norms. Getting girls into school at a young age helps to keep young women from being married as children and adolescents.2-3 A reduction in child marriages correlates to lowered rates of spousal abuse and gender-based violence. Education is further linked to prevention of the spread of HIV/AIDS and other illnesses, as well as decreased likelihood of trafficking victimization.2, 4 The advantages of education are passed on to the next generation. For every additional year of maternal education, the risk of a child under five dying decreases by 3%.5 Children born to mothers with 12 years of education are more than 30% less likely to die before age five than those born to mothers with no education.
“A woman’s wages can increase between 15 and 20% for every additional year of primary school.”
Furthermore, a more educated population means that more people can contribute to the work force and go on to specialize in careers that support international commerce, governmental development, and economic growth.6 When a child attends school regularly, their socioeconomic status is improved.7 Increasingly, women are the primary household earners, and a woman's wages can increase between 15 and 20% for every additional year of primary school.8-9 An increase in household income is associated with improved children’s health and nutrition.10 Children of single mothers who received equitable compensation for paid labor will grow up with more resources and will be less likely to be exposed to intimate partner violence.11 And the benefits to the education of women reach far beyond their individual households. Researchers estimate that women's equal participation in the workforce would add $28 trillion to the world's economy and increase the gross domestic product for a country by an average of 10% within 10 years.12
“Women’s equal participation in the workforce would add $28 trillion to the world’s economy and increase the gross domestic product for a country by an average of 10% within 10 years. ”
By investing in education for women, a nation can pull itself out of isolation and poverty. Low education rates are a leading contributor to poverty worldwide, and its absence puts uneducated populations at risk of slipping deeper into the intergenerational cycle of poverty.6 Breaking this cycle allows people, and women in particular, to provide more for themselves and their families, pursue their goals, contribute to their economies, and strengthen their nations.13
References
Winstead, S. (2023). How has education changed over the last 100 years. My eLearning World. https://myelearningworld.com/how-has-education-changed-over-the-last-100-years/
Save the Children. (2024). Girl's education: Every girl deserves an education. https://www.savethechildren.org/us/what-we-do/education/girls-education
Sponsor a Gambian Girl [SaGG] Foundation. (2024). Importance of a girls’ education. https://www.saggfoundation.org/why-girls-education.html
UNAIDS. (2021). Keeping girls in school reduces new HIV infections. https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2021/april/20210406_keeping-girls-in-school-reduces-new-hiv-infections#:~:text=Staying%20in%20school%20longer%20has,gets%20a%20quality%20secondary%20education.
Balaj, M., York, H. W., Sripada, K., Besnier, E., Vonen, H. D., Aravkin, A., Friedman, J., Griswold, M., Jensen, M. R., Mohammad, T., Mullany, E. C., Solhaug, S., Sorensen, R., Stonkute, D., Tallaksen, A., Whisnant, J., Zheng, P., Gakidou, E., & Eikemo, T. A. (2021). Parental education and inequalities in child mortality: a global systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet, 398(10300), 608-620. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)00534-1
Global Citizen. (2020). What is the connection between education and poverty? Sustainable Development Goals - Resource Centre. https://sdgresources.relx.com/features/what-connection-between-education-and-poverty
Sosu, E. M., Dare, S., Goodfellow, C., & Klein, M. (2021). Socioeconomic status and school absenteeism: A systematic review and narrative synthesis. Review of Education, 9(3). https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3291
Fry, R., Aragão, C., Hurst, K., and Parker, K. (2023). In a Growing Share of U.S. Marriages, Husbands and Wives Earn About the Same. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/04/13/in-a-growing-share-of-u-s-marriages-husbands-and-wives-earn-about-the-same/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
UN Women. (2012). Facts & figures. https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/commission-on-the-status-of-women-2012/facts-and-figures#:~:text=According%20to%20global%20statistics%2C%20just,wages%20by%2010%2D20%20percent.
Health Resources and Services Administration’s [HRSA]. (2021). National survey of children’s health. https://mchb.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/mchb/about-us/national-survey-childrens-health-2021-overview-fact-sheet.pdf
Bair-Merritt, M. H., Blackstone, M., & Feudtner, C. (2006). Physical health outcomes of childhood exposure to intimate partner violence: A systematic review. Pediatrics, 117(2), e278-e290. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2005-1473
Woetzel, J., Madgavkar, A., Ellingrud, K., Labaye, E., Devillard, S., Kutcher, E., Manyika, J., Dobbs, R., & Krishnan, M. (2015). The power of parity: How advancing women's equality can add $12 trillion to global growth. McKinsey Global Institute. https://bibliotecadigital.ccb.org.co/bitstream/handle/11520/27617/MGI%20Power%20of%20parity_Full%20report_September%202015.pdf?sequence=1
Canadian Feed the Children. (2019). Child poverty: Causes and effects. https://canadianfeedthechildren.ca/the-feed/breaking-the-cycle-of-poverty-with-education/
