Skip to Main Content
It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This website works best with modern browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. If you continue with this browser, you may see unexpected results.
Gender Parity and Education
Keeping the Promise: 5 benefits of girls’ secondary education
The Academy for Educational Development’s Center for Gender Equity analyzes the low female enrollment in secondary education in different areas of the world, as about 40% of girls do not attend secondary school worldwide. Though there are still girls who do not reach primary school, even more girls are not able to attend secondary school. Using secondary research as well as the organization’s work with education around the world, the report highlights the barriers for girls attending secondary school, five main benefits to education girls, and strategies for increasing female education in secondary school. The key findings highlight that girls have to balance their duties in the home with school, familie choose to educate their boys over girls, and secondary school can be expensive for some families. However, the report highlights that long-term outcomes associated with education girls, including less diseases, healthier children, less poverty, and civic engagement. In conclusion, the research indicates strategies to increase girls’ access to secondary education including communicating the payoff to parents, building more schools, and making the environment more equitable.
The Economic Benefits of Educating Women
“Womenomics” is the study of how benefiting women has obvious connections to a better economy and society. This article shows evidence of this phenomenon especially through helping women receive more education. Educating females leads to a larger, more productive workforce, resulting in growth to GDP. Narrowing the gender gap in employment can also boost per capita income. The study shows that if the employment rate between males and females in Japan were equal, the country’s GDP could increase by 15%. Similar results can be seen in many countries around the world. Educating women leads to health benefits as well, including reductions in infant and maternal mortality, as well as healthcare costs. Emerging markets can benefit immensely by focusing on improving access to education for women.
Gender, Education, and Training: An International Perspective
It is widely recognized that women are missing from participation in the economy and the issue highly stems from their disproportionate participation in education. Using secondary research, this paper presents the reasons behind the gender gap in education internationally and critically examines why the current education provided does not equally benefit both women and men. Though the outcomes of educating women through formal and vocational training are addressed, the author argues these programs will not close the gender gap unless they also strive to change social and cultural practices, especially in conservative rural communities. The author proposes schools must have a gender-sensitive pedagogy and enforce curriculum that includes the gender lens.
Education & Poverty: A gender analysis
This report offers an economic view of poverty and education through a gender lens. Though it recognizes education can alleviate poverty, it also details the costs of educating girls versus boys for families, especially in poor countries. Furthermore, the paper’s secondary research highlights the gap in the returns of educating girls versus boys due to wage differentials and social attitudes. In order to eliminate the gender gap for education as a poverty alleviation tool the report highlights several strategies including: reducing opportunity costs to girls’ schooling, increasing incentives for girls’ enrollment to reduce the costs, implementing educational initiatives outside of the schooling system, improving the quality of education by including a gender lens, and eliminating wage differentials through non-education sector policies that tackle discrimination.
Women Education in Nigeria
The paper provides an overview of education for women in Nigeria using secondary data to highlight current conditions. In particular, the author uses research to build a case for how education benefits economic empowerment, poverty alleviation, more family planning, and healthier children in Nigeria. Furthermore, the paper illustrates the barriers to education based on income level and socio-cultural attitudes. The author calls for policies that recognize the importance of education in addressing gender inequality and suggests programs to make education available to low-income families in Nigeria and eliminate the unique barriers for girls.
Information and Communication Strategies for Women’s Socioeconomic Empowerment
This paper acknowledges and analyzes the impact Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have on society and their increased use in rural areas. In particular, ICTs are creating opportunities for women to access information and participate in political, social, and economic processes. Therefore, ICTs can play a role in eliminating gender inequality, however, this paper highlights the limitations for women, including access, low literacy, and limited data. The purpose of the paper is to better understand the needs of women in developing countries with increased use of ICTs. Using evidence from projects and data, the paper provides recommendations for policy makers and the development community to invest in ICT infrastructure, skills, and education.
Girls Count: A Global Investment and Action Agenda
This report focuses on the power of adolescent girls in increasing economic growth, poverty reduction, decreasing child marriage, preventing illnesses, and building a voice for women. The paper argues that adolescent girls are uniquely positioned to make a higher impact on society than other age groups as they grow into young women. However, it illustrates the ways government and society is failing girls and the particular challenges they face in poor, developing countries. Therefore, the paper argues that the issue girls and societies face can be mitigated by focused investment in girl-directed policies and programs that meet their needs. Using evidence from girl-focused projects, the paper urges government, private sector, and society, to take action and provides recommendation for empowering girls.
Why so few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
More women are enrolling in science and engineering programs, but men continue to dominate these fields. The report examines the reasons for the under-representation of women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields by reviewing hundreds of papers from secondary sources and highlighting eight recent research findings providing evidence that social and environmental factors contribute to this phenomenon. Research indicates that about as many girls and boys are prepare for STEM fields but only 20% of STEM degrees are earned by women. The authors recommend changes in universities to attract and retain females in STEM fields and recognizes the role of unconscious bias in this issue.
Development of Women’s Education in Kenya
Education is viewed to be a tool for having choices about the future and a main way to affect social norms in a community. The author analyzes the significance of education by examining women with education and women without education in Kenya. The paper uses data and information collected from journals and internet sources as well as the the author’s experience as a refugee in Kenya to access the situation of women’s education in Kenya. The key finding indicates that women with education experience more autonomy in decision-making and greater choices.
Fast Tracking Girls’ Education
This report highlights the impact of Education for All’s Fast Track Initiative in different developing countries by using stories, research, and data from their work in these countries. The initiative has seen growth in girls’ education in 26 of the 30 countries they operate, but they highlight several difficulties. Their recommendations include focusing on ways to mobilize communities to send their girls to school, promoting targeted financial support, creating school health programs, and ensuring gender-sensitive curriculum and teacher management. The paper proposes to focus on post conflict countries and continue pressing government to enact policies that support girls education.
Education from a Gender Equality Perspective
Though educating both boys and girls provides an increase in earnings and future opportunities, educating girls provides additional socio-economic gains that benefit societies. Economic productivity, higher family incomes, delayed marriages, reduced fertility rates, and improved health and survival rates for infants and children. This paper highlights that attention on education needs to focus on retention, quality, and achievement for girls so they can realize the benefits of education. This paper presents a framework designed to address the gender inequality in education. The Gender Equality framework is a tool for education programmers and takes into account gender dynamics, while addressing four dimensions of equality in education, including: equality of access, equality in the learning process, equality of educational outcomes, and equality of external results. This paper offers recommendations for activities that can be implemented in respect to these four areas of equality, along with examples from successful USAID education projects.
Promoting Gender Equality in Digital Literacy
Studies indicate that computer use and skills are subject to gender differences and this paper examines this idea along with its implications. First, the paper uses a quantitative study of 90 students from secondary school to analyze how boys and girls differ with respect to interest, skills, and self-confidence in digital literacy. In the second stage, a qualitative study involving interviews with 14 students explores perceptions of gender differences in digital literacy. The findings propose four dimensions that help teachers analyze roots causes of gender inequalities and ways to facilitate the elimination of these gender differences.
Promoting Gender Equality in the Context of Nigerian Cultural and Religious Expression: Beyond Increasing Female Access to Education
This paper argues that merely increasing access to education for women and girls in Nigeria will not lead to reducing gender inequality due to the strong influence of cultural and religious gender bias. In order to study the connection between gender inequality and education, the author conducts empirical research, including 29 interviews, 3 focus group discussions, and quantitative data from a survey of 45 gender groups. Individuals interviewed were educated women, including religious leaders and women’s rights leaders and the findings conclude that gender-friendly learning environments will lead to more fair outcomes in education. Therefore, more strategies should focus on decreasing the influence of cultural and religious gender bias in education.
A Culture of (In)Equality?: A Cross-National Study of Gender Parity and Gender Segregation in National School Systems
Though the unequal access of education by girls and boys is known, recent reports have brought to light the segregation of school systems by gender in terms of separate classes and schools for boys and girls. Using data from the International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), this paper reports gender parity across about 45 nations in access (measured by enrollment rates), performance (mathematics achievement scores), and opportunity (implemented curriculum, teacher characteristics, classroom interaction) among 13-year-old girls and boys. The findings of the study suggest that while gender parity numerically exists in many of these 45 nations in access, performance, and opportunity, the implications for gender equality are unclear.
Education and Training Benefiting a Career as Entrepreneur: Gender Gaps and Gendered Competencies and Benefits
This paper focuses on how the gender gap changes throughout different stages of the life of a professional women entrepreneur, from education to running a business. In order to gain insights on the effects of the gender gap in entrepreneurship, 110,689 adults around the world were surveyed and results were analyzed through hierarchical modelling. The key findings indicate that education and training over time benefits women greater than men and gender gaps can be reduced. However, early gaps in human capital and the environment widens the gender gap in entrepreneurship. The implications suggest that more research must be done on gendered learning as gaps in early education are found and more research must be conducted on the effects of gender on career phases in micro- and macro- level contexts. Understanding the gender gaps in career phases helps frame policies and provides education focused on empowering women’s careers.
Why so few Women in STEM: The Role of Social Coping
As jobs in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) are increasing, women are continually choosing not to enter these male-dominated fields. The cause for the misrepresentation of women in these fields relates to many factors, but this paper focuses on the role of social coping in retaining women and leading to successful females in STEM fields. Survey data from 106 undergraduate students in STEM fields from Syracuse University was used to analyze the role of social coping using regression analysis. The findings indicate that among undergraduate women in STEM programs, social coping was used more than their male counterparts. In addition, social coping is a better predictor of commitment for women than it is for men. Therefore, this has implications for universities and companies who want to create a welcoming and collaborative environment for females in STEM studies.