In this sense, more education may benefit the individual woman and her household. To the individual woman her increased ability to exercise her rights and responsibilities simply by being able to read and right (crucial i.a. for owning land, using the law to stand up to violence or exercising political rights) may be as important as all the economic and health factors discussed below. Further it can increase her empowerment regarding decisions of her own reproductive capacity, i.e. decisions of family planning and contraceptive use which would be expected to reduce her fertility.
Fertility rates, i.e. the average number of children expected to be born to a woman over her lifetime, are as mentioned very high in many parts of SSA. This could be explained as an adaptive response to the time-consuming nature of household and farm tasks which make women’s time a scarce commodity, and the extensive use of child labour for such tasks has obvious consequences for enrollment (Hyde 1993, p.114). There are numerous ways in which parental education may reduce fertility, through raising the age of marriage, increasing the ability to use family planning, improving child health and likelihood of survival. Especially at the secondary level, women’s education is seen to have a greater effect on fertility than men’s (Ainsworth et al 1995, p. ix, and Appleton et al 1996).
The benefits of reduced fertility rates (and thus slower population growth) is mainly social, but also on the individual level, reducing fertility puts less strain on maternal health, and may improve the nutrition and health of the fewer children in the household. Indeed it has been shown that when the mother is more educated her children tend to be healthier through better hygiene and nutritional practices. Hill and King (1993, p.12) indeed argue that maternal education is more important to child health than household income.
Also, when the mother is more educated her children’s education tends to improve, both in terms of earlier entry into school, school enrolment and more actually completed years of schooling by adulthood (Schultz 2002, p. 212). The health and schooling of children are more closely related to their mother’s education rather than their father’s, the benefit on child development being larger from adding one year to the mother’s schooling than to the father’s, and even more so when the mother controls a greater share of the household’s non-earned income (Schultz 2002, p. 213). Filmer (1999, p. 5) identifies a further effect on the gender gap when he notes that increasing a mother’s education has a bigger positive effect on the education of her daughters than her sons.
All of the above points show how female education benefits the social through improving the health and education, and hence productivity, of the (future) labour force, by strengthening and improving the efficiency of the ‘reproductive economy’.
They therefore constitute what Schultz refers to as ‘favourable social externalities’ which would be associated with any public investments in female schooling (Schultz 2002, p. 212).
Now, education not only enhances a woman’s productivity in her reproductive activities at home, but also at the workplace. Whether it is farm or non-farm economic activity the gain in productivity from education is found to be higher for women than men (Hill & King 1993, p. 27). This gain in productivity is known as the private Rate of Return to Education (RoRE) and is most commonly calculated in terms of the Mincerian coefficient, expressing the impact on household income from one extra year of education/schooling. Now if, as some argue, the marginal RoRE is higher for women than men it would imply that the existing gender gaps in education are in effect causing inefficiencies in household incomes.
Schultz argues that because women tend to be less educated, and because marginal returns on education decline, women’s marginal returns will be higher. So on aggregate there should be more social gain from women’s education than men’s (Schultz 2002, p. ). However, returns to primary education seem to have fallen while those for secondary education have been maintained, and in a later paper Schultz contradicts himself by claiming that private returns are indeed higher at the secondary level (Schultz 2004, abstract), and whereas male returns have been shown to be higher than female at the primary level, female returns are higher than male’s at the secondary and university levels (Appleton et al p. 326).
Another purely social, and indeed national, benefit is that as more educated women work more hours in the market labour force, the tax base is broadened giving the government the option to lower the overall tax rate reducing that disincentive to undertake readily monitored market production activities, as part of attempting to spur investment and growth. And he notes that whereas men’s schooling appears to have a negative effect on women’s market labour supply, women’s schooling has no effect on men’s (Schultz 2002, p. 215-216). This tax base benefit of more women entering the labour market, however, has to be weighed against the possibility that daughters might be withheld from schooling to compensate for the less time the mother can spend on housework. But on the other hand, when young women spend time in waged work and do not marry as early, the parents are more likely to get a share of the future profits of educating their daughters, and will be more willing to make that investment (Hill & King 1993, p. 27).
Although, schooling might not always be seen as a purely economic investment. E.g. in rural Ethiopia parents value female education because it is perceived to increase cleanliness. This shows that improved hygiene and health are direct benefits, and not merely externalities, of education and thus influence parents’ decisions (Appleton et al 1996, p. 316).
Costs / Disincentives to female education
In the end, whether or not a girl goes to school will generally be the decision of the parents. So given all the above benefits, what are the main hindrances and disincentives to female education in SSA? Apart from the direct monetary costs such as uniforms, transportation, books and stationary etc that persist even when tuition is free, there are great opportunity costs to the education of girls. As has been mentioned, most places in SSA girls tend to do a great share of family labour, especially in reproductive tasks such as helping out with their siblings etc (Hill & King 1993, p. 26). So indirectly also the mothers (lack of) education and subsequent efficiency in the household, ability to procure income, ability and urge to teach and send her children to school will have a marked effect on enrolment.
Sending daughters to school can also be conceived as undesirable because it means less time available to learn domestic skills and those handicrafts which may be a big source of income for the household from the mother or other elderly women (Hyde 1993, p. 116). The importance placed in such skills is an expression of how women in SSA are unprepared to enter the labour market, imaginably because of the unfavourable labour market opportunities for women which indeed have caused female labour market participation (as percentage of female population in labour force) to fall from 65 percent in 1980 to 62.5 percent by 2005 (Ibid, p. 120, updated figures taken from WB GenderStats, b.).
Also, negative parental attitudes toward Western education are in some places a factor. For example in the Muslim Hausa region of Nigeria, parents keep their daughters at home wishing to protect them from all undesirable influences since especially the role of women is seen to be to protect both Muslim and Hausa values and traditions. But Islam, or any other one factor, cannot be held responsible for low female enrolment in SSA since all cultural, institutional and socio-economic contexts are distinct and cause different reactions. In Sudan, for example, enrolment rates are significantly higher in the Muslim north than they are in the traditional and Christian south (Ibid, p. 112-113).
The largest/most general hindrance to female education, however, is that the majority of the benefits discussed above, may not be as significant, and therefore evident and worthwhile, to the individual household as they become to wider society when added up. And if the expected returns from girls’ education do not exceed the explicit and implicit costs, daughters will only be educated to the extent that the parents are willing or able to accept the low economic returns (Hill & King 1993, p. 24). So in a sense the greatest of costs can in fact be said to occur when female access to education is limited, bearing in mind the lost opportunities for raising productivity, incomes and quality of life.
Different studies thus argue that the gender gap in education is putting a brake on development by highlighting the correlation between female education and improvements in the main indicators of human development included in the above cost-benefit analysis, i.e. life-expectancy at birth, infant and maternal mortality, fertility and also GNP per capita, that are foregone (Hill & King 1993, p.15). But the fact that the poorest countries are those with the greatest gender differentials in education poses the question of causality, whether to a large extent these gender differences amount from the effects of socio-economic inequalities on enrollment.
In his study of the factors which are inhibiting the attainment of universal primary education around the world, Filmer (1999) found that whereas there are significant gender gaps in education for only a subset of countries, all countries in his study showed a big wealth gap in education (e.g. in Senegal the enrolment of boys aged 6-14 years in the poorest of households was 52 percentage points lower than that of the richest households) (Filmer 1999, p.4). This is worrying because of the fact that in countries with high female disadvantages in education (e.g. Niger, Egypt, Morocco, and Pakistan) these socio-economic inequalities interact with and exacerbate gender gaps in enrolment. For example, in Mozambique 1997 the percentage point difference between males and females in enrolment for the richest households was -0.2, whereas it for the poorest it was 14.8, Uganda 1995 1.6 and 10.3 (Filmer 1999, p.4 and table 6 p.50). Put in other words, the socio-economic disparities in education are greater among girls than among boys.
This implies that whilst closing the gender gap in education is important, we must close the effect of socio-economic inequalities on the gender gap, i.e. that part of fighting gender inequalities lies in fighting all other socio-economic inequalities.
Policy
As has been touched upon, there are many different cultural, institutional and economic conditions that may influence women’s access to education, and will do so in different ways depending on the distinct and context specific relations between these factors. The low enrolment rate of Muslim girls in the north of Nigeria, compared to Muslim girls in the Sudan is but one example. Another is the fact that in Zaire parents can charge higher bride-prices for educated girls, which means they are more eager to send their daughters for secondary education, but that does not mean that those practices are something that should, or even can, be replicated elsewhere.
So for female education the same applies as what Pritchett says about education in general, that in order to be effective no policy or goal can be promoted irrespective of the cultural, institutional, economic, political or even the related policy climate
(Pritchett 1997, p. 44).
As a good for which the social returns are higher than private, female education is a perfect case justified for public spending, Schultz argues ‘if the private market wage returns are of comparable magnitudes for men and women’ (Schultz 2002, p. 215). The impact of public spending on enrolment and educational attainment depends on the response of households to the private subsidy, its nature and efficiency, and on the degree of the ensuing social returns. One way in which the nature of government spending may have an impact is through gendered employment and teacher training for public schooling systems. It is thought that increasing the number of female teachers impacts female enrolment and educational achievement, seeing as a negative attitude towards the ability of girls seems to be prevalent among teachers in SSA, but unless also the female teachers are taught to be sensitive to gender equity, such policy may not have the desired effect (Hyde 1993, p. 124-125). There is also the possibility that in some places schooling of girls is restricted by a lack of sex segregated schools, particularly at the secondary level, but there are not many studies that expenditures on such intervention would significantly increase female educational attainment and be cost-effective in that sense (Schultz 2002, p. 218).
Apart from increasing the number of female teachers, sex segregation, and improving curriculum options suitable for girls, most strategies require reaching beyond the school to families and communities. A fruitful approach may be a strategy directed at mothers as opposed to school-aged girls themselves, to increase the mother’s (time for) education and reduce her dependence on the labour of her children by for example introducing time-saving amenities such as convenient water supply and fuel for households (Hyde 1993, p. 127). A more traditional approach is to reduce the cost of girls’ schooling directly through monetary subsidies, and there have been examples of successful programmes in e.g. Mexico of poverty alleviation grants to poor rural mothers to keep their children enrolled in school (Schultz 2002, p. 218).
When it comes to the efforts of NGOs and international donors to raise levels of female schooling, Hyde found their results rather negligible, and in some instances even harmful as traditional beliefs of protecting girls from Western corruption through the educational system was reinforced. However, if international aid agencies work together with local women’s organisations and NGOs in promoting non-formal education systems supplementing the formal, the effects can be positive. E.g. literacy programmes have been successful in many African countries such as Tanzania, but demonstrate a need to be integrated with existing formal education and grass-roots organisations to reduce costs and spur educational demand e.g. for organisational needs such as record-keeping (Hyde 1993, p. 127). Other ways of inducing demand and showing how women can productively employ their schooling is by giving them access to managerial, non-agricultural and extra-familial jobs through culture-specific institutions, perhaps such as farm extension activities facilitate off-farm employment for better educated daughters (Schultz 2002, p. 217).
When saying that considerations of the broader policy environment are of importance one should also not forget the impact of structural adjustment policies advocated by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund throughout SSA and the developing world, because as Hyde puts it, especially the associated ‘privatization of the public sector, including education, could widen the chasm between those girls who get an education and those who do not’, as more of the cost of an education is put on the household (Hyde 1993, p. 129).
Conclusion
Although the gender gap is shrinking, disparities in educational access and attainment between males and females in large parts of SSA remains a problem which seems to be hindering or slowing development. The schooling of women has stronger correlations with improvements in the main human development indicators than that of men; improvements in life expectancy, infant and maternal health, and even national productivity, GNP, that are foregone when female access to education is limited. Going through the benefits and gains from female education, the majority seem to be mainly social. Whether or not, or to what extent, they will have any significant effect on the individual household is more uncertain and can vary greatly depending on how these benefits might strengthen each other or not, and given the specific contexts determined by cultural and institutional factors as well as socio-economic and political conditions. This seems to be the main hindrance specific to female education, and because the social gains at stake are so extensive, increased public investment is more than justified. How exactly this investment is to take place in order to be most efficient, however, is difficult so say since it would need to be tailored to distinct local context specificities.
References:
Ainsworth M. et al, (1995), ‘The Impact of Female Schooling on Fertility and Contraceptive Use’, Living Standards Measurement Study, Working Paper No. 110, World Bank, Washington
Appleton S. et al, (1996), ‘Education and Health in Sub-Saharan Africa’, Journal of International Development, Vol. 8, No. 3.
Hill M. A. and King E. M eds. (1993), Women's Education in Developing Countries: Barriers Benefits and Policies, John Hopkins University Press for World Bank, Ch. 1.
Hyde, K. (1993), ‘Sub-Saharan Africa’ in Hill and King (eds), Women's Education in Developing Countries: Barriers Benefits and Policies, John Hopkins University Press for World Bank, Ch.3.
Filmer D., (1999), ‘The Structure of Social Disparities in Education: Gender and Wealth’, World Bank Background Paper, downloaded from http://www.worldbank.org/gender/prr/workingsp.htm (26/11/2007).
Pritchett L. (1997), ‘Where Has All the Education Gone?’, Policy Research Working Paper No. 1581, World Bank. Downloaded from Bank website (www.worldbank.org) (25/11/2007).
Schultz T. Paul, (2002), ‘Why Government’s Should Invest More to Educate Girls’, World Development, vol 30, no. 2, pp. 207-225.
Schultz T.Paul, (2004), ‘Evidence of returns to schooling in Africa from Household Surveys: Monitoring and restructuring the market for education’, Journal of African Economies, 13 (Supplement 2), pp. 95-148.
World Bank website, GenderStats database:
a. Education: http://devdata.worldbank.org/genderstats/genderRpt.asp?rpt=education&cty=SSA,Sub-Saharan%20Africa&hm=home2 (as of Dec. 7, 2002)
b. Labour Force: http://devdata.worldbank.org/genderstats/genderRpt.asp?rpt=labor&cty=SSA,Sub-Saharan%20Africa&hm=home2 (as of Dec. 7, 2002)
Other sources:
Bennell P. (1996), ‘Rates of Return to Education: Does the Conventional Pattern Prevail in Sub-Saharan Africa?’, World Development, vol. 24, no. 1.
Bennell P., (2002), ‘Hitting the Target: Doubling Primary School Enrolments in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2015’, World Development, vol. 30, no.7.
Easterly W. (2002), The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics, Cambridge (MA): MIT Press. Ch.4.
Fine B. and P. Rose (2001), ‘Education and the post-Washington consensus’, in B.Fine, C.Lapavitsas and J.Pincus (eds) Development Policy in the Twenty-first Century: Beyond the post-Washington consensus, pp155-181, London & New York: Routledge.
Tzannanatos, Z. (1999), “Women and Labour Market Changes in the Global Economy: Growth Helps, Inequalities Hurt and Public Policy Matters”, World Development, vol 27, no. 3, pp. 551-569.
- Regarding gross enrolment rates one must be wary and aware that, the definition being the number of children enrolled as a percentage of the relevant age group, we are not taking into account that children of other ages may enroll for the same year, which would entail that rates may be overestimated and can exceed 100 percent.
One must be cautious, however, regarding the Mincerian returns because in addition to various measurement difficulties, they exclude direct costs of education as well as the social costs from taxes and subsidies (Appleton et al 1996, p. 325).
Although, in some more pastoral places such as Botswana, boys generally perform the greater share of family labour such as herding and the like. And since that would have an effect on gender equalities in education these are the type of pre-existing institutional factors that need to be considered when assessing the success or otherwise of educational programs etc.
However, knowledge of local cultural and social practices is important as not to damage social cohesion and community by taking away platforms of social interaction such as the fetching of water without somehow replacing them.
