importance of women's education

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Investing in girls’ education transforms communities, countries and the entire world. Girls who receive an education are less likely to marry young and more likely to lead healthy, productive lives. They earn higher incomes, participate in the decisions that most affect them, and build better futures for themselves and their families.

Girls’ education strengthens economies and reduces inequality. It contributes to more stable, resilient societies that give all individuals – including boys and men – the opportunity to fulfil their potential.

But education for girls is about more than access to school. It’s also about girls feeling safe in classrooms and supported in the subjects and careers they choose to pursue – including those in which they are often under-represented.

When we invest in girls’ secondary education

• The lifetime earnings of girls dramatically increase
• National growth rates rise
• Child marriage rates decline
• Child mortality rates fall
• Maternal mortality rates fall
• Child stunting drops

Why are girls out of school?

Despite evidence demonstrating how central girls’ education is to development, gender disparities in education persist.

Around the world, 129 million girls are out of school, including 32 million of primary school age, 30 million of lower-secondary school age, and 67 million of upper-secondary school age. In countries affected by conflict, girls are more than twice as likely to be out of school than girls living in non-affected countries.

Worldwide, 129 million girls are out of school.

Only 49 per cent of countries have achieved gender parity in primary education. At the secondary level, the gap widens: 42 per cent of countries have achieved gender parity in lower secondary education, and 24 per cent in upper secondary education.

The reasons are many. Barriers to girls’ education – like poverty, child marriage and gender-based violence – vary among countries and communities. Poor families often favour boys when investing in education.

In some places, schools do not meet the safety, hygiene or sanitation needs of girls. In others, teaching practices are not gender-responsive and result in gender gaps in learning and skills development.

Gender equality in education

Gender-equitable education systems empower girls and boys and promote the development of life skills – like self-management, communication, negotiation and critical thinking – that young people need to succeed. They close skills gaps that perpetuate pay gaps, and build prosperity for entire countries.

Gender-equitable education systems can contribute to reductions in school-related gender-based violence and harmful practices, including child marriage and female genital mutilation .

Gender-equitable education systems help keep both girls and boys in school, building prosperity for entire countries.

An education free of negative gender norms has direct benefits for boys, too. In many countries, norms around masculinity can fuel disengagement from school, child labour, gang violence and recruitment into armed groups. The need or desire to earn an income also causes boys to drop out of secondary school, as many of them believe the curriculum is not relevant to work opportunities.

UNICEF’s work to promote girls’ education

UNICEF works with communities, Governments and partners to remove barriers to girls’ education and promote gender equality in education – even in the most challenging settings.

Because investing in girls’ secondary education is one of the most transformative development strategies, we prioritize efforts that enable all girls to complete secondary education and develop the knowledge and skills they need for life and work.

This will only be achieved when the most disadvantaged girls are supported to enter and complete pre-primary and primary education. Our work:

• Tackles discriminatory gender norms and harmful practices that deny girls access to school and quality learning.
• Supports Governments to ensure that budgets are gender-responsive and that national education plans and policies prioritize gender equality.
• Helps schools and Governments use assessment data to eliminate gender gaps in learning.
• Promotes social protection measures, including cash transfers, to improve girls’ transition to and retention in secondary school.
• Focuses teacher training and professional development on gender-responsive pedagogies.
• Removes gender stereotypes from learning materials.
• Addresses other obstacles, like distance-related barriers to education, re-entry policies for young mothers, and menstrual hygiene management in schools.

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Reimagining Girls' Education: Solutions to Keep Girls Learning in Emergencies

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e-Toolkit on Gender Equality in Education

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Fixing the Broken Promise of Education for All

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GirlForce: Skills, Education and Training for Girls Now

This report discusses persistent barriers girls face in the transition from education to the workforce, and how gender gaps in employment outcomes persist despite girls’ gains in education.

UNICEF Gender Action Plan (2022-2025)

This plan specifies how UNICEF will promote gender equality across the organization’s work, in alignment with the UNICEF Strategic Plan.

Global Partnership for Education

This partnership site provides data and programming results for the only global fund solely dedicated to education in developing countries.

United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative

UNGEI promotes girls’ education and gender equality through policy advocacy and support to Governments and other development actors.

Girls' Education

Every day, girls face barriers to education caused by poverty, cultural norms and practices, poor infrastructure, violence and fragility. Girls’ education is a strategic development priority for the World Bank.

Ensuring that all girls and young women receive a quality education is their human right, a global development priority, and a strategic priority for the World Bank. 

Achieving gender equality is central to the World Bank Group twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity. As the largest financing development partner in education globally, the World Bank ensures that all of its education projects are gender-sensitive, and works to overcome barriers that are preventing girls and boys from equally benefiting from countries’ investments in education.

Girls’ education goes beyond getting girls into school. It is also about ensuring that girls learn and feel safe while in school; have the opportunity to complete all levels of education, acquiring the knowledge and skills to compete in the labor market; gain socio-emotional and life skills necessary to navigate and adapt to a changing world; make decisions about their own lives; and contribute to their communities and the world.

Both individuals and countries benefit from girls’ education. Better educated women tend to be more informed about nutrition and healthcare, have fewer children, marry at a later age, and their children are usually healthier, should they choose to become mothers. They are more likely to participate in the formal labor market and earn higher incomes. A recent World Bank  study  estimates that the “limited educational opportunities for girls, and barriers to completing 12 years of education, cost countries between US$15 trillion1 and $30 trillion in lost lifetime productivity and earnings.” All these factors combined can help lift households, communities, and countries out of poverty.

The Challenge

According to  UNICEF   estimates, around the world, 129 million girls are out of school, including 32  million of primary school age, and 97 million of secondary school age. 

Globally, primary, and secondary school enrollment rates are getting closer to equal for girls and boys (90% male, 89% female). But while enrollment rates are similar – in fact, two-thirds of all countries have reached  gender parity in primary school enrollment  – completion rates for girls are lower in low-income countries where 63% of female primary school students complete primary school, compared to 67% of male primary school students.  In low-income countries, secondary school completion rates for girls also continue to lag, with only 36% of girls completing lower secondary school compared to 44% of boys. Upper secondary completion rates have similar disparities in lower income countries, the rate is 26% for young men and  21% for young women.

The gaps are starker in countries affected by fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV). In FCV countries,  girls are 2.5 times  more likely to be out of school than boys, and at the secondary level, are 90% more likely to be out of secondary school than those in non-FCV contexts.  

Both girls and boys are facing a learning crisis. Learning Poverty (LP) measures the share of children who are not able to read proficiently at age 10. While girls are on average 4 percentage points less learning-poor than boys, the rates remain very high for both groups. The average of Learning Poverty in in low- and middle- income countries is 55% for females, and 59% for males. The gap is narrower in low-income countries, where Learning Poverty averages about 93% for both boys and girls.

In many countries, enrollment in tertiary education slightly favors young women, however, better learning outcomes are not translating into better work and life outcomes for women. There is a large gender gap in labor force participation rates globally. It is especially stark in regions such as South Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, which have some of the  lowest female labor force participation rates  at 24% and 20% per region, respectively. These are appallingly low rates, considering what is observed in other regions like Latin America (53%) or East Asia (59%), which are still below rates for men. 

Gender bias  within schools and classrooms may also reinforce messages that affect girls’ ambitions, their own perceptions of their roles in society, and produce labor market engagement disparities and occupational segregation. When gender stereotypes are communicated through the design of school and classroom learning environments or through the behavior of faculty, staff, and peers in a child’s school, it goes on to have sustained impact on academic performance and choice of field of study, especially negatively affecting young women pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines.

Poverty  is one of the most important factors for determining whether a girl can access and complete her education. Studies consistently reinforce that girls who face multiple disadvantages — such as low family income, living in remote or underserved locations or who have a disability or belong to a minority ethno-linguistic group — are farthest behind in terms of access to and completion of education.

Violence  also prevents girls from accessing and completing education – often girls are forced to walk long distances to school placing them at an increased risk of violence and many experience violence while at school. Most  recent data  estimates that approximately 60 million girls are sexually assaulted on their way to or at school every year. This often has serious consequences for their mental and physical health and overall well-being while also leading to lower attendance and higher dropout rates. An estimated  246 million children experience violence in and around school every year , ending school-related gender-based violence is critical. Adolescent pregnancies can be a result of sexual violence or sexual exploitation. Girls who become pregnant often face strong stigma, and even discrimination, from their communities. The burden of stigma, compounded by unequal gender norms, can lead girls to drop out of school early and not return. 

Child marriage  is also a critical challenge. Girls who marry young are much more likely to drop out of school, complete fewer years of education than their peers who marry later. They are also more likely to have children at a young age and are exposed to higher levels of violence perpetrated by their partner.  In turn, this affects the education and health of their children, as well as their ability to earn a living. Indeed, girls with secondary schooling are up to six times more likely to marry as those children with little or no education.  According to a recent report , more than 41,000 girls under the age of 18 marry every day. Putting an end to this practice would increase women’s expected educational attainment, and with it, their potential earnings. According to the report’s estimates, ending child marriage could generate more than US$500 billion in benefits annually each year.

COVID-19  is having a negative impact on girls’ health and well-being – and many are at risk of not returning to school once they reopen. Available  research  shows that prevalence of violence against girls and women has increased during the pandemic – jeopardizing their health, safety and overall well-being. As school closures and quarantines were enforced during the 2014‐2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, women and girls experienced more sexual violence, coercion and exploitation. School closures during the Ebola outbreak were associated with an increase in teenage  pregnancies . Once schools re-opened, many “visibly pregnant girls” were banned from going back to school. With schools closing throughout the developing world, where stigma around teenage pregnancies prevails, we will probably see an increase in drop-out rates as teenage girls become pregnant or married. As girls stay at home because of school closures, their household work burdens might increase, resulting in girls spending more time helping out at home instead of studying. This might encourage parents, particularly those putting a lower value on girls' education, to keep their daughters at home even after schools reopen. Moreover,  research  shows that girls risk dropping out of school when caregivers are missing from the household because they typically have to (partly) replace the work done by the missing caregiver, who might be away due to COVID-19-related work, illness, or death. Therefore, with the current COVID-19 pandemic, we might see more girls than boys helping at home, lagging behind with studying, and dropping out of school.

The World Bank is committed to seeing every girl prosper in her life. Our projects support the education of hundreds of millions of girls and young women across the world. Working through interventions in education, health, social protection, water, infrastructure, and other sectors, we are making an even stronger commitment to support countries in ensuring that every girl receives the quality education she deserves.

Our 180 projects are impacting more than  150 million girls and young women worldwide . Hundreds of millions more have been impacted over the past few decades. 

We tackle key barriers that girls and young women face when trying to obtain an education. Guided by evidence on what works for girls’ education, our projects use multi-pronged approaches across areas including:

1. Removing barriers to schooling

• Addressing financial barriers, through scholarships, stipends, grants, conditional cash transfers
• Addressing long distances and lack of safety to and from school by building schools, providing transportation methods for girls to get to school
• Addressing a lack of information about returns to girls’ education but running community awareness campaigns engaging parents, school leaders, and local community leaders
• Working with the community to address and inform on social and cultural norms and perceptions that may prevent girls’ education

2. Promoting safe and inclusive schools 

• By constructing and rehabilitating schools to create safe and inclusive learning environments, 
• Efforts at the community- and school-levels, and programs to engage the school (including teachers, girls, and boys) in reducing gender-based violence (GBV) and ensuring available mechanisms to report GBV
• Support for hygiene facilities and menstrual hygiene management for adolescent girls

3. Improving the quality of education 

• Investing in teacher professional development, eliminating gender biases in curriculum and teaching practices, and focusing on foundational learning
• Adapting teaching and learning materials, and books to introduce gender sensitive language, pictorial aspects, and messaging

4. Developing skills and empowering girls for life and labor market success 

• Promoting girls’ empowerment, skills development programs and social programs
• Prioritizing and promoting women in STEM subjects and careers in both traditional and non-traditional sectors
• Reducing barriers and providing incentives through scholarships for women to enroll in higher education and TVET programs
• Support for childcare programs for women and girls to join the labor market

For more information on our girls’ education investment and projects, please read  Count Me In: The World Bank Education Global Practice: Improving Education Outcomes for Girls and Women , which highlights our decades-long commitment to girls’ education, and showcases how Education GP projects are creating opportunities for girls around the world to succeed in their education and beyond.

The WBG supports girls’ education through a variety of interventions.  Our focus on girls’ education and wellbeing goes beyond school attendance and learning outcomes – we strive to ensure girls have safe, joyful, and inclusive experience with education systems that set them up for success in life and motivate them to become lifelong learners. This  approach , reflected in the current Education portfolio impacting at least 150 million girls and young women, prioritizes investments in four key areas listed below. 

1. Removing barriers to girls’ schooling

• Our projects providing stipends to improve primary and secondary school completion for girls and young women in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and the Sahel benefit close to half a million girls. 
• Our  Girls Empowerment and Learning for All Project in Angola  will use a variety of financial incentives to attract adolescent girls to schools, including scholarships, and new school spaces for girls. 
• The AGILE (Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment) project in Nigeria is providing conditional cash transfers to households for sending girls to school, removing cost barriers to their education. 
• The MIQRA (Mali Improving Education Quality and Results for All Project) has a school feeding and nutrition program targeted at retention and attendance for girls in schools.

2. Promoting safe and inclusive schools for girls

• In Tanzania, the Bank is supporting the training of a counselor in every school who will provide life-skills training in girls’ and boys’ clubs – which is important because closing gender gaps is not only about interventions for girls but also for boys. 
• In Nigeria, female counselors will provide life skills training to about 340,000 girls in safe spaces. Several of our other projects also support the construction of separate sanitary toilets for girls, as well as introducing GBV-reducing and reporting mechanisms in school systems. 

3. Improving the quality of education for girls (and boys)

• In Ghana, the Accountability and Learning Outcomes Project is conducting teacher training for gender-sensitive instruction, and aims to create guides for teachers to support gender sensitivity in classrooms. 
• In Honduras, the Early Childhood Education Improvement Project, will create a revised preschool curriculum that will include content on gender equity, inclusion, and violence prevention, as well as training for teachers, including training to combat GBV.
• The Girls Empowerment and Quality Education for All Project in Sao Tome & Principe is creating girls’ clubs after school, where they are also provided with life skills training, and counseling.

4. Developing skills for life and labor market success for young women

• The Nurturing Excellence in Higher Education Project in Nepal is focusing on increasing access to tertiary education for young women from low-income groups, and additional providing scholarships for the poorest applications, alongside communication and advocacy campaigns for more female enrollment in STEM subjects. 
• The ASSET (Accelerating and Strengthening Skills for Economic Transformation) project in Bangladesh is working to increase the participation of women in skills training programs, and conducting awareness and communications campaigns to address dropout.
• In Pakistan, the  Higher Education Development  project seeks to support women enrolled in STEM programs, with an aim to move them from 2-year to more comprehensive 4-year programs. 
• The  Higher Education Project  in Moldova and the Higher Education Modernization Project in Belarus will both support and finance activities to increase enrollment of women in STEM fields. The Côte d'Ivoire  Higher Education Development Support Project  provides scholarships for women in higher education, and extra tutoring support for females pursuing STEM subjects.
• Schemes to increase participation of girls in higher education. Through the Africa Centers of Excellence (ACE) project, the Bank has supported increased enrollment of females in masters and PhD programs. The number of female students in ACE centers was 343 in 2014 and is now 3,400 in 2020; a tenfold increase. The Bank is also building the pipeline of female students interested in computer science and engineering programs and retain them.  

The WBG works closely with governments and other development organizations on girls’ education issues to identify and advance interventions that improve girls’ education outcomes and provide resources to support countries implementing such initiatives. Partnerships both within and outside of the World Bank are critical to the Education GP’s work on girls’ education. The Education GP works with other global practices in the Bank to improve girls’ education—for example, collaborating with the Water GP for access to sanitation and hygiene in schools, with Social Protection and Jobs GP for challenges related to labor market transition, or Energy GP to improve school safety. 

The World Bank collaborates actively with many donors and organizations. As a signatory to the G7 Charlevoix Commitment, the Bank has already committed an estimated $2.5 billion to girls’ education in FCV countries as of September 2021—exceeding its pledge of $2.0 billion from 2018 to 2023. 

The Education GP: 

• is collaborating with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office FCDO (UK) about targets and high-level engagement with G7 donors, to support aid and financial commitment for girls’ education; 
• is a member of the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) Girls’ EiE Reference Group, which seeks to further research and advocacy for girls’ education in emergencies; 
• a member of the UNESCO Gender Flagship Reference Group and has provided technical contributions to the UNESCO-commissioned study (December 2020-July 2021); and 
• is working closely with the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) as the implementing agency for 54 percent of the total GPE grants of $3.62 billion, that support girls’ education.
• is a member of the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI), which comprises over 20 partners representing multilateral, bilateral, civil society, and non-governmental organizations.
• collaborated with the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) to produce Economic Impacts of Child Marriage , a recent report detailing the effects of child marriage, which was supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation , the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation , and GPE.

Girls’ education in conflict is most at risk: Here’s how to reach them

Why girls’ education should remain a priority

Closing the gap: Tackling the remaining disparities in girls’ education and women’s labor market participation

Empowering adolescent girls in Africa through education

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Education as the Pathway towards Gender Equality

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Amartya Sen, often referred to as the father of the concept of ‘human development’, reminds us of a quote by H.G. Wells, where he said that “human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe”. Sen maintains that “if we continue to leave vast sections of the people of the world outside the orbit of education, we make the world not only less just, but also less secure”. To Sen, the gender aspect of education is a direct link between illiteracy and women’s security.

Not being able to read or write is a significant barrier for underprivileged women, since this can lead to their failure to make use of even the rather limited rights they may legally have (to own land or other property, or to appeal against unfair judgment and unjust treatment). There are often legal rights in rule books that are not used because the aggrieved parties cannot read those rule books. Gaps in schooling can, therefore, directly lead to insecurity by distancing the deprived from the ways and means of fighting against that deprivation. 1

For Sen, illiteracy and innumeracy are forms of insecurity in themselves, “not to be able to read or write or count or communicate is a tremendous deprivation. The extreme case of insecurity is the certainty of deprivation, and the absence of any chance of avoiding that fate”. 2 The link between education and security underlines the importance of education as akin to a basic need in the twenty-first century of human development.

GENDERED EDUCATION GAPS: SOME CRITICAL FACTS

While a moral and political argument can continue to be made for the education of girls and women, some facts speak powerfully to the issue at hand. Girls accounted for 53 per cent of the 61 million children of primary school age who were out of school in 2010. Girls accounted for 49 per cent of the 57 million children out of school in 2013. In surveys of 30 countries with more than 100,000 out-of-school children, 28 per cent of girls were out of school on average compared to 25 per cent of boys. Completion of primary school is a particular problem for girls in sub-Saharan Africa and Western Asia. 3

Surveys in 55 developing countries reveal that girls are more likely to be out of school at a lower secondary age than boys, regardless of the wealth or location of the household. Almost two thirds of the world’s 775 million illiterate adults are women. In developing regions, there are 98 women per 100 men in tertiary education. There are significant inequalities in tertiary education in general, as well as in relation to areas of study, with women being over-represented in the humanities and social sciences and significantly under-represented in engineering, science and technology.

Gender-based violence in schools undermines the right to education and presents a major challenge to achieving gender equality in education because it negatively impacts girls’ participation and their retention in school. In addition, ineffective sexual and reproductive health education inhibits adolescents’ access to information and contributes to school dropouts, especially among girls who have reached puberty.

The education of girls and women can lead to a wide range of benefits from improved maternal health, reduced infant mortality and fertility rates to increased prevention against HIV and AIDS. 4 Educated mothers are more likely to know that HIV can be transmitted by breastfeeding, and that the risk of mother-to-child transmission can be reduced by taking drugs during pregnancy.

Each extra year of a mother’s schooling reduces the probability of infant mortality by 5-10 per cent. Children of mothers with secondary education or higher are twice as likely to survive beyond age 5 compared to those whose mothers have no education. Improvements in women’s education explained half of the reduction in child deaths between 1990 and 2009. A child born to a mother who can read is 50 per cent more likely to survive past age 5. In sub-Saharan Africa, an estimated 1.8 million children’s lives could have been saved in 2008 if their mothers had at least a secondary education. In Indonesia, 68 per cent of children with mothers who have attended secondary school are immunized, compared with 19 per cent of children whose mothers have no primary schooling. Wages, agricultural income and productivity—all critical for reducing poverty— are higher where women involved in agriculture receive a better education. Each additional year of schooling beyond primary offers greater payoffs for improved opportunities, options and outcomes for girls and women.

In the varied discussions on the post-2015 education related agendas, there was strong consensus that gender equality in education remains a priority. Various inputs noted that inequalities in general, and particularly gender equality, need to be addressed simultaneously on multiple levels—economic, social, political and cultural. A response on behalf of the International Women’s Health Coalition maintained that “all girls, no matter how poor, isolated or disadvantaged, should be able to attend school regularly and without the interruption of early pregnancy, forced marriage, maternal injuries and death, and unequal domestic and childcare burdens”.

Other inputs highlighted the importance of ensuring access to post-basic and post-secondary education for girls and women. Referring to secondary education, the German Foundation for World Population noted that the “completion of secondary education has a strong correlation with girls marrying later and delaying first pregnancy.” While access to good quality education is important for girls and women, preventing gender-based violence and equality through education clearly also remains a priority.

Gender-based discrimination in education is, in effect, both a cause and a consequence of deep-rooted differences in society. Disparities, whether in terms of poverty, ethnic background, disability, or traditional attitudes about their status and role all undermine the ability of women and girls to exercise their rights. Moreover, harmful practices such as early marriage, gender-based violence, as well as discriminatory education laws and policies still prevent millions of girls from enrolling and completing their respective education. 5

Additionally, given the extensive and growing participation of women in income generating activities, education for girls and women is particularly important, especially in attempting to reverse gendered patterns of discrimination. Not only is it impossible to achieve gender equality without education, but expanding education opportunities for all can help stimulate productivity and thereby also reduce the economic vulnerability of poor households.

GENDER EQUALITY, EQUITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Equity is the strongest framing principle of a post-2015 rights-based agenda, and underlines the need to redress historical and structural inequalities in order to provide access to quality education at all levels. This heralds what was effectively one of the strongest themes that emerged in the post-2015 education consultations, i.e., a rights-based approach in which rights are indivisible. This implies that all aspects of education should be considered from a rights perspective, including structural features of education systems, methods of education, as well as the contents of the education curricula. Indeed, overcoming structural barriers to accessing good quality education is vital for realizing education rights for all.

In related post-2015 consultations, equity is affirmed as a fundamental value in education. Several inputs noted that inequality in education remains a persistent challenge. This is connected to a focus in the Millennium Development Goals on averages without an accompanying consideration of trends beneath the averages. Many contributions in the education consultation, as well as in the other thematic consultations, highlighted the lack of attention to marginalized and vulnerable groups.

Equal access to good quality education requires addressing wide-ranging and persistent inequalities in society and should include a stronger focus on how different forms of inequality intersect to produce unequal outcomes for marginalized and vulnerable groups. Post-2015 consultations suggest that overcoming inequality requires a goal that makes national governments accountable for providing minimum standards and implementing country specific plans for basic services, including education. Equity in education also implies various proactive and targeted measures to offer progressive support to disadvantaged groups.

Amartya Sen notes empirical work which has brought out very clearly how the relative respect and regard for women’s well-being is strongly influenced by their literacy and educated participation in decisions within and outside the family. Even the survival disadvantage of women compared with men in many developing countries (which leads to “such terrible phenomenon as a hundred million of ‘missing women’) seems to go down sharply, and may even get eliminated, with progress in women’s empowerment, for which literacy is a basic ingredient”.

In the summer of 2009, the International Labour Organization (ILO) issued a report entitled “Give Girls a Chance: Tackling child labour, a key to the future”, which makes a disturbing link between increasing child labour and the preference being given to boys when making decisions on education of children. The report states that in cultures in which a higher value is placed on education of male children, girls risk being taken out of school and are then likely to enter the workforce at an early age. The ILO report noted global estimates where more than 100 million girls were involved in child labour, and many were exposed to some of its worst forms.

Much of the research around women and education highlights the importance of investing in the education of girls as an effective way of tackling the gamut of poverty. This is in line with assertions made in numerous other references, which also point to a strong link between education, increased women’s (as opposed to girls’) labour force participation, the wages they earn and overall productivity, all of which ultimately yields higher benefits for communities and nations. In other words, it pays to invest in girls’ and women’s education.

GENDER SOCIALIZATION

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Western feminist stalwarts, such as Simone de Beauvoir, were elaborating the difference between biological ‘sex’ and social gender. Anne Oakley in particular, is known for coining the term gender socialization (1979), which indicates that gender is socially constructed. According to Oakley, parents are engaged in gender socialization but society holds the largest influence in constructing gender. She identified three social mechanisms of gender socialization: manipulation, canalization, and verbalization (Oakley, 1972). Oakley noted that gender is not a fixed concept but is determined by culture through the use of verbal and nonverbal signifiers and the creation of social norms and stereotypes, which identify proper and acceptable behavior. The signifiers are then perpetuated on a macro level, reinforced by the use of the media, as well as at the micro level, through individual relationships.

The concept entered mainstream lexicon on gender relations and development dynamics, and through criticism and counter criticism, ‘gender socialization’ itself became an important signifier. As a tool to highlight discriminatory practices, laws and perceptions (including stereotypes), gender socialization is often identified as the ‘root cause’ which explains various aspects of gender identities, and what underlies many gender dynamics.

In 2007, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) defined gender socialization as “[T]he process by which people learn to behave in a certain way, as dictated by societal beliefs, values, attitudes and examples. Gender socialization begins as early as when a woman becomes pregnant and people start making judgments about the value of males over females. These stereotypes are perpetuated by family members, teachers and others by having different expectations for males and females.”

There is, therefore, a clear interaction between socio-cultural values (and praxis) with gender socialization. This only partly explains why it is that in many developing societies there is a persistent prioritization of women’s ‘domestic’ roles and responsibilities over public ones. Most young girls are socialized into the ‘biological inevitability’ of their socially determined future roles as mothers. This is closely connected, in many relatively socially conservative contexts, with the need to ensure (the prerequisite of) marriage.

Most related studies maintain that women with formal education are much more likely to use reliable family planning methods, delay marriage and childbearing, and have fewer and healthier babies than women with no formal education. The World Bank estimates that one year of female schooling reduces fertility by 10 per cent, particularly where secondary schooling is undertaken.

In fact, because women with some formal education are more likely to seek medical care and be better informed about health care practices for themselves and their children, their offspring have higher survival rates and are better nourished. Not only that, but as indicated earlier, these women are less likely to undergo early pregnancy. Being better informed increases the chances of women knowing how to space their pregnancies better, how to access pre and post-natal care, including prevention of HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and family planning in general. The World Bank estimates that an additional year of schooling for 1,000 women helps prevent two maternal deaths.

The World Bank, along with UNICEF and the United Nations Population Fund highlight in several of their reports the intergenerational benefits of women’s education. An educated mother is more likely, it is maintained, to attempt to ensure educational opportunities for her children. Indeed, the World Bank specifically notes that “ in many countries each additional year of formal education completed by a mother translates into her children remaining in school for an additional one- third to one-half year”. 6

In short, girls’ education and the promotion of gender equality in education are critical to development, thus underlining the need to broadly address gender disparities in education.

The rhetorical question that needs to be raised here is whether the consistent elements of gender socialization in the region, and the confusing messages for both sexes, can only lead to entrenching processes of gender inequality. At the very least, it is safe to argue that gender socialization, combined with the continuing discrepancies in education opportunities and outcomes not only provide a negative feedback loop, but effectively contribute to entrenching patriarchal norms.

Political events and the endorsement of political leadership are often catalytic, if not necessary determinants, of policy change. In fact, most education reform programmes are often linked to political dynamics. To date, such reforms are typically launched through a political or legal act. In most cases, countries prioritize aspects such as forging a common heritage and understanding of citizenship, instruction in particular language(s), and other means of building capacities as well as popular support for party programmes. All developing country governments have, at one time or another, put special effort into including girls in the education system. While there is a continuous role for policy makers and governments, it is increasingly clear that the socio-cultural terrain is where the real battles need to be waged in a studied, deliberate and targeted fashion.

Influencing the way people think, believe and behave; i.e., culture is the single most complicated task of human development. And yet, in policy and advocacy circles globally, this particular challenge still remains largely considered as ‘soft’ and, at best, secondary in most considerations. What is maintained here is that within the current global geopolitical climate, particularly where an increasing number of young men—and now also young women—are reverting to extremes such as inflicting violence, and where this is often exacerbated by socialization processes which often enforce certain harmful practices (e.g., early marriage) and outdated forms of gender identity and roles, then culture needs to be a high priority.

Needed cultural shifts require several key conditions. One of these is the importance of bridging the activism around gender equality and doing so by involving both men and women. While this still remains anathema to many women’s rights activists, it is nevertheless necessary that men become more engaged in gender equality work, and that women realize that their rights are incumbent on the systematic partnership with men and on appreciating the specific needs and challenges that young boys and men themselves are struggling with.

Another critical determinant of cultural change is that it has to be from within. Those who have worked with human rights issues more broadly have had to learn the hard way that any change that appears to be induced ‘from outside’, even if responding to a dire need and with perfectly sound reason, is destined for failure in many cases. Sustainable change has to be owned and operated locally. This points to the importance of identifying the ‘cultural agents of change’ in any given society, which include both its men and women activists, religious leaders, traditional and community leaders (in some cases these categories converge), media figures, charismatic community mobilizers, and especially youth themselves, who are the most critical agents of change.

At the same time, it is a fallacy to think that there can be no linkages whatsoever between local ownership and external dynamics. International, especially multilateral, development partners have an important role to play in facilitating the bridge building between and among the cultural agents of change themselves on the one hand, and between them and their respective policymakers on the other. But in this day and age of technology and increasing speed of technology, international development actors, as well as transnational academic actors, are already facilitating the building of bridges between youth. Some of this is already happening through a plethora of fora (including social websites), and the impact remains difficult to gauge.

All this points to the fact that education in the traditional sense of school enrolment, drop-out rates, curricula development, and structural dynamics thereof are in multiple stages of transition. It remains to be seen how, and in what way, new forms of education, knowledge acquisition, and information sharing will significantly change patterns of gender socialization itself. It is too soon to definitely assess the shifting sands we are standing on. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to either overestimate the power of entrenched patriarchy, or to underestimate the capacity of women and men to significantly refashion their realities. At the same time, the changes in the culture of international development goal setting are already producing critical insights and inputs which are shaping the agenda of global, regional and national dynamics for upcoming decades.

The opinions expressed in this article belong to the author only and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of any institution, Board or staff member.

1 UNICEF and UNESCO: The World We Want— Making Education a Priority in the Post-2015 Development Agenda: Report of the Global Thematic Consultation on Education in the Post-2015 Development Agenda, 2013 . Available at http://www.unicef.org/education/files/ Making_education_a_Priority_in_the_Post-2015_Development_ Agenda.pdf.

3 “Making education a Priority in the Post-2015 Development Agenda: report of the Global Thematic Consultation on education in the Post-2015 Development Agenda”.

4 All the figures and data herein presented from UNESCO. 2011b. EFA Global Monitoring Report 2011. The Hidden Crisis: Armed Conflict and Education, Paris and UNESCO . World Atlas of Gender equality in education. Paris, 2012.

5 UNESCO— http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-international-...

Alger, Chadwick. “Religion as a Peace Tool”, The Global Review of Ethnopolitics , vol.1,4: 94 -109. (June 2002).

Diamond, Larry (ed.). Political Culture and Democracy in Developing Countries (Boulder and London, Lynne Rienner, 1994). Huntington, Samuel. ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’, Foreign Affairs , vol.72, No.3, Summer 1993, pp. 19 -23.

Johnson, Chalmers. Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (New York , Henry Holt and Company, 2000).

Karam, Azza. Transnational Political Islam: Religion, Ideology and Power (London, Pluto Press, 2004).

Leftwich, Adrian (ed.). Democracy and Development: Theory and Practice (London, Polity Press, 1996).

Macrae, Joanna. Aiding Recovery? The Crisis of AID in Chronic Political Emergencies (London and New York, Zed Books in Association with ODI, 2001).

Pilch, John J. “Beat His ribs While He is young” (Sir 30:12): A Window on the Mediterranean World”, Biblical Theology Bulletin: A Journal of Bible and Theology, vol. 23, 3 (1993) pp 101-113.

Tynedale, Wendy. (ed.). Visions of Development: Faith-based Initiatives (UK: Ashgate, 2006).

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)’s Arab Human Development Report (New York, 2002, 2004, and 2005).

UNESCO, “Key Messages and Data on Girls’ and Women’s education and literacy” (Paris, April 2012).

UNICEF and UNESCO, The World We Want—Making Education a Priority in the Post-2015 Development Agenda: Report of the Global Thematic Consultation on Education in the Post-2015 Development Agenda, 2013 . Available at http://www.unicef.org/education/files/Making_education_a_Priority_in_the... . United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) State of World Population Report: Reaching Common Ground—Culture, Gender and Human Rights (2008).

Williams, Brett (ed.). The Politics of Culture (Washington D.C., The Smithsonian Institution, 1991).

World Bank MENA report: The Road Not Travelled: Education Reform in the Middle East and North Africa , (Washington D.C. The World Bank, 2008).

The UN Chronicle  is not an official record. It is privileged to host senior United Nations officials as well as distinguished contributors from outside the United Nations system whose views are not necessarily those of the United Nations. Similarly, the boundaries and names shown, and the designations used, in maps or articles do not necessarily imply endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations.

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Importance of Women’s Education

• Updated on  
• Nov 15, 2021

What is education ? Education is defined as learning or studying existing knowledge and cultural legacy. It is a fundamental human right , accessible to all genders or sexes. Across the world, education is viewed as a necessity yet millions of women remain illiterate because of poverty, social stigma, discrimination, lack of resources and much more. In this blog, we will understand the importance of women’s education and will see some of the famous quotes of world leaders on women’s education.

Also Read: Myths About the Indian Education System

This Blog Includes:

What is the importance of women’s education, importance of women’s education: explained in simpler terms, why is it important to educate women , speech on importance of women’s education, importance of women’s education in women empowerment, importance of women’s education quotes, importance of women’s education on their health, welfare schemes for women.

Female education is a catch-all term for a complex set of issues and controversies surrounding education for girls and women (including elementary, secondary, and university education, as well as health education). It’s also known as women’s education or girls’ education. Inequalities in education for girls and women are complex: some problems are more systematic and less explicit, such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education disparities, while others are more systematic and less explicit, such as violence against women or prohibitions of girls from going to school.

Women’s education is critical to the country’s entire development. It’s similar to an effective medicine that may know how to cure a patient and recover their health. A well-educated lady is capable of managing both her personal and professional lives. The physical and intellectual growth of the child is the moral goal of education. Education’s true objective is to provide students with “full knowledge” or “greater information.” 

A well-educated woman provides the skills, knowledge, and self-assurance necessary to be a better mom, worker, and citizen. A well-educated woman will also be more productive and well-paid at work. Indeed, the return on investment in education is often higher for women than for males.

The following are some of the reasons why it is crucial to educate women, especially in an underdeveloped country:

Basic Right

To begin with, education is a fundamental right for everyone, and when we say everyone, we must remember that women should be included in this group. We cannot have such a big number of illiterate women in our society; it would be a great loss to us. Every girl and woman, whether rich, poor, young, elderly, married, single, widowed or of any other social position, has the right to an education. Education is a fundamental right, not a privilege.

Increases Literacy Rate

Nearly 63% of the world’s 163 million illiterate youngsters are female. By providing education to all children, literacy rates will rise, boosting development in undeveloped countries.

Eliminates Human Trafficking

According to the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking, women are most vulnerable to trafficking when they are uneducated and poor. This multinational business may be seriously impacted by giving young females opportunities and essential skills.

Political Representation

Women are under-represented as voters and political participants all across the world. Civic education, training, and overall empowerment, according to the United Nations Women’s programmes on leadership and participation, will help bridge that gap.

Equality in Society

Discrimination and inequality always begin at the root level. When a boy goes to school while his sister remains home because she is a girl, it sows a seed of bias in the boy’s head. He believes he is superior simply because he is a boy, and he has no rationale for this belief. When women participate in education by attending schools and colleges with males, the boys are more aware of their educational rights and are less likely to acquire a superiority complex. As a result, teaching both men and women promotes the concepts of equality and democracy.

Poverty Reduction

When women have equal rights and access to education, they are more likely to engage in business and economic activities. By feeding, clothing, and providing for entire families, increased earning power and income battle existing and future poverty.

It is undeniable that the relevance of female education is a significant problem. There is no gender equality; it is only for boys and girls to think as a group. Boys and girls should be equally prepared when it comes to national growth and development. How can we imagine a future world full of technology, creativity, beauty, and development in every sector while keeping one of our four productive populations in a four-walled boundary that we call home?

The majority of people in India, as we all know, live in rural areas. This community, though, has evolved through time. Public perceptions of freedom were not any more conservative. Many families have relocated their girls to states with greater resources. They study theatre, dancing, art, music, sculpture, science, history, journalism, and medicine, among other subjects.

Girls, like any other boy who is focused on reaching their objectives, go out and give it their all, whether it’s in education or athletics. They achieve because of their hard work and dedication.

The only thing that stands in the way of anyone achieving it is that it is impossible to attain. Girls, on the other hand, require a lot of familial support in addition to their desire. They require a family that understands them, and their family, like any other male counterpart, must grow. His parents are in charge of a lot of obligations.

Children are like buds; if you give them enough water and enough sunlight at the right time, they will blossom into healthy blossoming flowers. When I say that, I’m referring to children of either gender. We can solve all of our issues if we can shift our girls’ how attitudes about education and the importance of their country’s growth.

Women’s empowerment is an important element of every community, state, or nation. In a child’s basic life, it is a woman who performs a prominent role. Women have a significant role in our culture. Women’s empowerment via education might result in a good attitude change. As a result, it is critical for India’s socio-economic and political development. The Indian Constitution gives the government the authority to take affirmative action to promote women’s empowerment. Education has a huge impact on the lives of women.

Women’s empowerment is a global problem, and many formal and informal movements throughout the world focus on women’s political rights. Women’s empowerment begins with education, which helps them to adapt to difficulties, face their traditional roles, and alter their lives. As a result, we must not overlook the value of education in terms of women’s empowerment. In light of recent advancements in women’s education, India is seen as the world’s emerging superpower.

Women’s empowerment, according to the United National Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), involves:

• Gaining knowledge and awareness of gender relations, as well as the ways in which they may be changed.
• Gaining a sense of self-worth, faith in one’s ability to effect desired changes, and the ability to direct one’s own life.
• Having the ability to make decisions that give you negotiating power.
• Improving one’s abilities to organize and influence social change to achieve a more just social and economic order on a national and worldwide scale.

As a result, empowerment is defined as a psychological sense of personal control or influence, as well as a concern for actual social power, political authority, and legal rights. Individuals, organizations, and communities are all included in this multi-level architecture.

Below, we have listed some of the famous quotes by some of the most popular personalities in the world:

“There is no greater pillar of stability than a strong, free, and educated woman.” ~Angelina Jolie

“If we are going to see real development in the world then our best investment is WOMEN!” ~Desmond Tutu

“As a tribute to the legions of women who navigated the path of fighting for justice before us, we ought to imprint in the supreme law of the land, firm principles upholding the rights of women.” ~Nelson Mandela

“We should be respectful but we must also have the courage to stop harmful practices that impoverish girls, women and their communities.” ~ Graca Machel

“When women are educated, their countries become stronger and more prosperous.” ~Michelle Obama

“Young women who want an education will not be stopped.” ~ Freida Pinto

“Women share this planet 50/50 and they are underrepresented – their potential astonishingly untapped.” ~Emma Watson

“To educate girls is to reduce poverty.” ~ Kofi Annan

“The seeds of success in every nation on Earth are best planted in women and children.” ~Joyce Band

Education has been linked to fewer child and maternal deaths, better child health, and decreased fertility in various research. Women with some formal education are more likely than uneducated women to use contraception, marry later, have fewer children, and be more knowledgeable of their children’s nutritional and other needs.

• Feedback: Girls’ education assists women in limiting the number of children they have. Over time, increasing girls’ school attendance lowers fertility rates.
• Mental Health: Increased access to education for women improves maternal health. An additional year of education for 1,000 women is known to help avoid two maternal deaths. 
• Child Survival: Increasing the educational opportunities for girls has a beneficial impact on infant and child health. A child born to an educated mother has a 50% higher chance of living through the age of five than a child born to an illiterate mother.
• HIV/AIDS: A girl’s or woman’s chance of getting HIV or passing HIV to her baby is decreased by education.Women in 32 countries who continued their education after elementary school was five times more likely than illiterate women to know basic HIV facts.
• Income Potential: Women’s earning potential is enhanced by education. A single year of primary school has been proven to improve women’s earnings by 10% to 20% later in life, whereas female secondary education returns range between 15% and 25%.

The following are the welfare schemes initiated to promote women education:

Mahila Samakhya Programme : The New Education Policy of 1968 led to the establishment of the Mahila Samakhya Programme in 1988, which aimed to empower rural women from low-income families.

The Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya Scheme (KGBV) provides basic education to girls. It mostly serves rural regions with poor female literacy.

Girls who are not encouraged via SSA are covered under the National Programme for Education of Girls at the Elementary Level (NPEGEL) .

The Saakshar Bharat Mission for Female Literacy was established to reduce female illiteracy.

Women’s education is critical to the country’s entire development. It’s similar to an effective medicine that may know how to cure a patient and recover their health. A well-educated lady is capable of managing both her personal and professional lives. The physical and intellectual growth of the child is the moral goal of education. Education’s true objective is to provide students with “full knowledge” or “greater information.”

The overall literacy rate in India is 74.04% with Kerala with highest literacy rate while Bihar with the lowest literacy rate.

There are various powerful mediums available for Indians to raise awareness, the most primary place it begins is at home where girls should be encouraged to go to school and follow their talents. Powerful mediums like social media, government volunteers, advertisements, politicians can attribute to raising awareness.

In this blog, we saw the importance of women’s education. Many concerns must be solved, including infrastructure, teacher-to-student ratios, female child safety at school, an improved curriculum, and sanitary facilities, for more girls to be educated. Furthermore, parents must recognize the value of education and must not discriminate between their male and female children. Stay connected with Leverage Edu for educational content!

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The US role in advancing gender equality globally through girls’ education

In 1995, just after the 75th anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton gave a historic speech in Beijing at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. There, she famously declared that “human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights,” discursively weaving the struggle for gender equality in the U.S. to the struggle for gender equality around the world.

As the U.S. commemorates the centenary of the 19th Amendment and the world celebrates 25 years since the Beijing Platform for Action —which set a global agenda to remove systemic barriers holding back women’s full participation in public and private life—there is much stocktaking that the U.S. needs to do with regard to its role in advancing gender equality beyond our borders. In particular, the U.S. government’s role in promoting girls’ education, a key pathway to achieving gender equality, must be stepped up significantly.

Why girls’ education?

Girls’ education, alongside improved sexual and reproductive health and rights, has often been cited as the world’s best investment , the key to enabling girls and women more agency in their homes, communities, and countries. Educating girls contributes later to their increased formal economic opportunity and wages , decreases in pregnancy and early marriage , reduction in child and maternal mortality , better educated children when they do bear children, increased participation in politics , and decreased climate risk vulnerability . The list of spillover effects from an investment in girls’ education runs long as a result of empowered women; healthier families; and more resilient economies.

In the United States, progress in the education of women and girls has been an important step to (and byproduct of) advancing gender equality in all facets of domestic and work life. The story of female education and progress toward gender equality has been similar in many other high-income and upper-middle income countries around the world. But it has been patchwork or stalled in many low-income countries due to geopolitical, economic, and social barriers, as well as a lack of funding targeting countries with the greatest gender gaps in education.

An uneven story of progress, threatened by COVID-19

While women in the U.S. were surpassing men in earning doctoral degrees in the early 2000s , the number of illiterate women in low-income countries was actually increasing by 20 million between 2000 and 2016 )—although this trend was primarily the result of decades of exclusion from education as girls aged into adulthood. During this same period, access to education for successive cohorts of girls began to increase as the era of the Millennium Development Goals ushered political attention to address gender gaps in education. Indeed, in just under two decades, gender gaps in education closed tremendously. Between 2000 and 2018, the number of primary school aged girls out of school fell by 44% , and by 2019 nearly two-thirds of countries had achieved gender parity in primary education. However, progress has plateaued over the last decade. Conflict in Northern Africa and Western Asia have made the region furthest from parity in primary education, and gender gaps in secondary education persist in sub-Saharan Africa.

Some of the barriers obstructing progress in low-income countries include gender discriminatory policies like prohibiting pregnant schoolgirls and adolescent mothers from attending school; gender-blind education budgets that may disproportionately benefit boys; gender-insensitive school facilities that may discourage girls and female teachers from attending school especially during their menstrual cycles; gender biased curriculum and teaching that may teach girls their future is in the marriage market rather than the labor market; and harmful gender practices like child marriage and female genital mutilation that may lead to girls dropping out of school prematurely.

Analysis at the Brookings Institution estimates that education gaps between rich and poor girls will take a long time to close; universal secondary education for the poorest girls in sub-Saharan Africa is estimated to be achieved by 2111. When it comes to individual countries, these gaps may take even longer to close .

The COVID-19 pandemic is worsening this timeline. Girls’ increased burden on domestic work and unpaid care during stay-at-home orders, their increased vulnerability to gender-based violence due to limited mobility during lockdown, and their lower access to technology and the internet means girls have less time and fewer resources to engage in remote learning , are at risk of unwanted and unplanned pregnancies , and are more likely to remain out of school when they eventually reopen. We don’t yet have a full understanding of what the long-term effects of COVID-19 school closures will be on girls, but research from previous protracted school closures suggests that learning loss combined with girls’ unique vulnerabilities can have long-term consequences for girls and the road to gender equality.

Prior to the pandemic, estimates suggest that 130 million girls were out of school around the world. If countries like the U.S. do not actively work to ensure special attention is paid to girls in the COVID-19 recovery plans of countries where girls face increased vulnerabilities, there could be an additional 20 million girls globally who do not return to school.

A troubling trend toward realizing gender equality through education

Since First Lady Clinton’s speech, girls’ education has become a political priority among many governments and high-level political fora promoting gender equality. The money appeared to have followed, most notably in the last decade as corporate engagement in girls’ education increased and as special funds, like the UK Department for International Development’s Girls’ Education Challenge , were dedicated. In 2010, 20% of overseas development assistance (ODA) targeted at gender equality went to the education sector, making the education sector the largest recipient of ODA targeting gender equality . But in 2018, while the overall ODA bucket to gender equality nearly doubled (from US$25.3 billion in 2010 to US$48.7 billion ), the education sector’s share has been halved .

Moreover, globally, investment decisions have not always appeared to be made on the assessment of need alone. For example, a Brookings analysis of multilateral, bilateral, foundation, and corporation financing of girls’ education found that countries with some of the largest gender gaps in education were not receiving any ODA or philanthropic donor funding targeting gender equality in education.

So, while investments toward promoting gender equality are on an upward trend, countries may be losing sight of the importance of investing in girls’ education as a critical entry point. And, those funds that have been allocated may not be targeting geographies where the road to gender equality is the longest and hardest.

A troubling trend in U.S. leadership

Amidst this global trend in girls’ education leadership and financing, it appears that the United States may be moving in the wrong direction for girls as well. Indeed, the U.S. record on advancing gender equality overseas has been inconsistent and highly dependent on the incumbent administration’s priorities. The last few years suggest a troubling trend.

Under the Obama administration, bilateral, allocable aid targeting gender equality grew from 0.05% to 7.91% of total aid between 2009 and 2016 . Within his first week in office, President Obama signed into law legislation that would strengthen women’s ability to challenge pay discrimination in the U.S., setting in motion a host of government initiatives and programs that would signal his feminist presidency at home and to the world. During this time, too, the U.S. adopted a whole of government approach to empower adolescent girls, which focused attention on enhancing girls’ access to quality education among other strategies to enhance the status of girls, improve girls’ health, and build girls’ leadership.

However, the Trump administration brought quick rollbacks. Notwithstanding his unabashed parading of misogyny and sexism, within his first 100 days in office President Trump reinstated and expanded President Reagan’s Global Gag Rule , which cut all federal aid associated with efforts to provide girls and women access to safe family planning, and derailed Let Girls Learn , First Lady Michelle Obama’s initiative targeting educational opportunities for adolescent girls. Such signaling was followed by a host of setbacks for gender equality in the U.S. and a sharp fall in the percentage of U.S. aid (to 2.6% by 2018) aimed at principally advancing gender equality overseas.

Although Ivanka Trump, an advisor to the president, spearheaded the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative   in 2019 as a means of maintaining U.S. foreign policy objectives in women’s economic empowerment, there is a notable absence of attention to girls’ education and family planning—two important factors to ensuring women’s economic inclusion. And while attention to girls’ education is present in USAID’s 2020 draft, Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Policy , the absence of attention to “gender-related power imbalances” (which was referenced in the 2012 policy), sexual and reproductive health and rights, and girls’ and women’s access to comprehensive family planning, means that efforts to advance gender equality through education will ultimately fall short.

As things currently stand, the U.S. has gone from an intersectional approach to gender equality that sought to combat discrimination on multiple, simultaneous, and intersecting fronts, to one that is piecemeal, incoherent, and takes several steps backward .

Three actions to reverse course

As we mark 100 years since the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and 25 years since the Beijing Declaration, we must consider that girls today in developing countries do not have another 100 years to wait for gender equality. If humanity is to realize Generation Equality by 2030, the U.S. has an important role to play in helping other countries “ build back equal ” for girls, especially in the wake of COVID-19. It can start in three ways:

1. Adopt a feminist foreign policy . A feminist foreign policy can be defined as: “the policy of a state that defines its interactions with other states … in a manner that prioritizes peace, gender equality and environmental integrity [and] seeks to disrupt colonial, racist, patriarchal and male-dominated power structures.” To date, only five countries (Sweden, Canada, France, Luxembourg, and Mexico) have adopted a feminist foreign policy—although many more countries have declared being a feminist government.

The U.S. should lead the charge in the second wave of countries adopting a feminist foreign policy. It can do so by centering girls’ education (as well as girls’ sexual and reproductive health and rights) into U.S. foreign policy, national security, international development, and humanitarian assistance. With such strong returns on investments in girls’ education and the current lack of such funding in the regions that need it most, girls’ education is low-hanging fruit when it comes to advancing progress in gender equality and promoting girls’ and women’s full participation in public and private life.

This idea already has momentum on Capitol Hill. In September, Congresswomen Jackie Speier (CA-14), Lois Frankel (FL-21), and Barbara Lee (CA-13) introduced legislation to support the goals of a feminist foreign policy. Their legislation calls for a U.S. foreign assistance policy among others that will “promote gender equality and focus on the experience of women and people who experience multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, such as gender-based violence, lack of access to sexual and reproductive health, lack of access to education, and the burden of unpaid care responsibilities.”

2. Increase ODA toward gender equality as a principal goal . Feminist advocates recommend that countries should allocate at least 20 percent of their total aid to investments with gender equality as a principal objective, and at least 85 percent as a significant objective. Presently, the U.S. is far below the OECD average and trails behind Sweden and Canada, two governments that have adopted a feminist foreign policy. Although the U.S. is the fourth largest net funder of gender equality ODA, this amount reflects only 21% of its overall aid (compared to 90% in Canada and 87% in Sweden). The U.S. needs to dramatically increase its gender equality ODA if it wants to walk its talk.

3. Give way to gender transformative leadership . Research has pointed to the important role of transformative leadership to promote progress in girls’ education specifically and gender equality broadly. Such leadership is needed not only at the level of individual political leadership (e.g., President and First Lady Obama, Congresswoman Nita Lowey, former Executive Director of the White House Council on Women and Girls Tina Tchen, etc.), but also through collective political leadership (e.g., through whole of government approaches, bipartisan working groups, cross-agency partnerships, and the members of the Democratic Women’s Caucus pushing for a feminist foreign policy today). Luckily, the U.S. isn’t short on transformative feminist leaders whose leadership on issues of gender equality should be amplified throughout U.S. international development programs, including education.

Congress doesn’t have to start from scratch when it comes to enabling policy frameworks for greater feminist action. For example, Congress passed the bipartisan Reinforcing Education Accountability in Development (READ) Act in September 2017, making it easier for the U.S. to partner with other countries and organizations to promote basic education in developing countries. Congress should use this groundwork to further advance legislative efforts that identify and address the specific barriers girls face in accessing and completing quality, gender transformative education around the world. Requiring outward facing departments such as the Department of State and USAID to develop strategies that bolster adolescent girls’ participation in democracy, human rights, and governance would help cement women’s and girls’ rights in the center of foreign policy decisions instead of being tacked on to programs with other aims.

There never was a better moment to take stock of the United States’ role in advancing gender equality at home and overseas. As the world is still trying to land on its feet from the COVID-19 shock, a fuller commitment to girls’ education through a U.S. feminist foreign policy could help reinvigorate global progress toward gender equality. In another 100 years, we should hopefully be able to look back and say that universal education for girls did for women and girls in the world what the enactment of the 19th Amendment did for gender equality in the U.S.

I would like to thank Katie Poteet for providing valuable research assistance.

This piece is part of 19A: The Brookings Gender Equality Series.  Learn more about the series and read published work »

About the Author

Christina kwauk, fellow – global economy and development, center for universal education, more from christina kwuak, congress may now have historic female representation, but women in leadership still have a long way to go.

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The Unique Challenges Facing Women in Education

• Posted April 1, 2021
• By Jill Anderson
• Career and Lifelong Learning
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

The pandemic has exposed many of the challenges facing women working in education. Yet, Jennie Weiner , Ed.M.'03, Ed.D.'12, an expert who studies how to create a more inclusive and equitable education field, acknowledges that many of the gender disparities in the education profession have long existed. Across the sector, women make up a majority of the education workforce but occupy barely a quarter of top leadership positions. This is not by accident, she says, but by systemic design.

“We've had a highly feminized profession, but feminized means both that women do the work, but also that it's devalued because it is women's work,” Weiner says, pointing to many issues that exist in education, such as underpaid teachers, buildings in disrepair, and even an “inverted” pyramid where men hold far more leadership positions than women.

“Many people would rather believe that hard work and being really good at what you do could outperform bias, and that's a lie. No matter how good you are, if we live in discriminatory system, that discrimination will raise its head," she says.

In this episode the EdCast, Weiner, an associate professor at the University of Connecticut, breaks down the gender issues in the field and suggests ways to push toward equality.

Jill Anderson:    I'm Jill Anderson. This is the Harvard EdCast.

Jennie Weiner knows the pandemic has exposed gender inequities that don't often get talked about in education. It doesn't matter whether women work in early childhood, or higher education, or somewhere in between, these inequities play out similarly across the field. Jennie is an associate professor who studies how to make education more inclusive and equitable through educational leadership. Although females have long made up the bulk of the education workforce, they barely represent a quarter of top leadership roles. She says there's many reasons for how we've ended up with gender inequity in the field and society. I asked Jennie to tell me more about the unique challenges facing women in education.

Jennie Weiner:     There are a number of challenges facing women in leadership generally, and then within the context of K12 specifically. Some of these challenges exist outside of the role, which are really about how our society frames the role of women and socialize us to understand what women should and shouldn't be doing within the space. Right? So for example, the idea that we should be the primary caretakers for our young children, which, of course, then creates complications if you don't have paid family leave, or access to reliable, cheap, and effective care for your children, and are attempting to work full time. Which was true in our context of our society prior to the pandemic, but of course has been exacerbated by the pandemic. We also have issues around who becomes caretakers, even if you don't have children for elderly parents, or for other kind of tasks within the context of a family, or an extended family.

So you have all that external socialization. And then you also have, what I would say is role socialization in leadership specifically, which is the way leadership is constructed in our society, and in education specifically, still really focuses on this idea of a lone hero, or heroic person, and I would argue, a white man, with characteristics that are stereotyped as masculine characteristics. So being very strong, or ambitious, or innovative, or aggressive, right? And we see this through our political cycles and in other spaces. So what happens is women may not be considered the best candidates for these positions because they hold other kinds of stereotyped ideas, right? So if you are more communally oriented, which should be a stereotype female, you're softer, you're emotional, you may not be seen as having leadership potential, right? And there's a lack of female mentors and women who are in charge in the first place to tap people along the trajectory.

But also if you exhibit traditionally, or stereotypically male characteristics that are more aligned with leadership, let's say being quite aggressive, or being innovative, we know that women often get criticized for exhibiting those behaviors. So I talk a lot about this idea of a double bind. So you have these externalized pathway issues and things that keep women from having full access to leadership that exist because of, again, our societal structures, and who gets to do what roles, and why, and how we think about that. But then we also have these internalized structures about how we understand and perceive what leadership is, and hence, who should be able to do it, and be successful, and thrive in the role. So it's a lot to say the least.

Jill Anderson:     It is a lot. I think it's something that you can easily look at and see in K through 12.

Jennie Weiner:    Right.

Jill Anderson:    You look and you see a lot of females, predominantly females in education, but you don't often see them in roles of superintendency or principalship.

Jennie Weiner:     So right now about 83 to 86% range of teachers are women. About 54% of principals are women, predominantly in elementary schools, and that's not an accident because elementary schools don't have after-school activities to the same extent. There's also ideas about women and their ability to facilitate, let's say discipline for older boys, and what they can handle. Also, women's willingness to blend their life and home life with their work life. So if I am a mother, am I willing to bring my kids to a bunch of basketball games, or activities at school consistently? If I'm a man, am I willing to do that?

And then at the superintendent level, it's been around 23% since the last 15 or 20 years. So, if you inverse that it's even more bananas, right? So you have, what is that then? 16% or so of teachers are men, about 50% of them are principals, and about 74% are superintendents. So, it's jarring in either direction, but I sometimes ask people to think in the reverse, right? But you have this teeny tiny pool at the bottom of the pyramid for men who are situated in schools and they're overwhelmingly more than 75% of the superintendents, the people in charge.

Jill Anderson:    Right. And is it the same when you get into higher ed and you start looking at careers [crosstalk 00:05:16].

Jennie Weiner:    Yes.

Jill Anderson:     ... in academia, the same reflection.

Jennie Weiner:     Right. And I think what's important to remember too, is historically it was built this way on purpose, Michael Apple, a scholar who studies the history of the profession, talks a lot about the ways in which we had to fill these common schools with an available workforce, people who could read and didn't have a lot of other options, and that was primarily women. So we've had a highly feminized profession, but feminized means both that women do the work, but also that it's devalued because it is women's work.

So that helps to explain why we have, for example, still issues around teachers being substantively underpaid, why buildings are in disrepair, and why we say we value education, but we consistently underfund it, and do not treat teachers with the respect I think that they deserve. And I think it's partially because it's mostly women who do that work over time, but it's also why we've created elaborate evaluation techniques to watch these women who need to be controlled and evaluated and observed to ensure they're doing the right thing within the context of schools. But teaching itself has been really situated as primarily a profession of women, and also then around caretaking as a primary driver as opposed to let's say high skills, knowledge capabilities. And academia is the same way. So it was created primarily for men, and therefore not surprising that it's very hard to break in, or deconstruct those ways of thinking about the work.

Jill Anderson:    How has the pandemic really shifted this? Because this has been a long existing problem, but now we're hearing about it on so many levels and it's getting a lot of attention.

Jennie Weiner:     Yeah. We're looking at somewhere between 2.5 and 4 million women leaving the workforce between the beginning of the pandemic and February of this year. So just that number is just breathtaking. Now, why? And it's intricately related to the things that we're discussing, right? So if you have professions, and you have, let's say a heterosexual couple, one is a man and one is a woman, and they both were working prior to the pandemic, it is highly likely because of the way discrimination works that the woman was in a lower paid field, or if she was in the same field, she was in a position in which she made less money than her husband.

In addition, many of the caretaking responsibilities within the context of the home that are considered to be stereotype female work, childcare, cleaning, scheduling, cooking, are usually taken up by women. So then the school is closed, there's no caretaking, you have young children, somebody has to give up their work in order to make that happen. If this is the parameters under which we make decisions, who's more likely to leave? Clearly the spouse who makes less money is more comfortable, or has been socialized to take on those roles within the context of the house before. And we see that, right? In fact, we actually saw quite a few women who made more money, or had their own professions and jobs, even those women leaving in favor of staying home.

And then we also, of course, to talk about this without talking about races, not really appropriate because most of the women who lost their jobs are women of color who were also in service industries, primarily in work that was most risk for catching COVID, whether that be home health care, the service industries, restaurants, cleaning services. And now they're also home and are unable to work, or have to put themselves at risk to facilitate their child, and their family having enough money to survive. So it exposed, I think things that were already there, but that we just never talked about in the public space.

Jill Anderson:    There were mothers I know who were working in education, who were working as early childhood educators and decided to leave their jobs to be able to accommodate remote learning, or being home with their kids through this time. So definitely hearing that in my own world.

Jennie Weiner:     Yeah. I think what you're saying is really powerful too, which I think people don't talk about, which is, if you have a profession, both early childcare providers and let's say any kind of childcare provider, and educators who are not childcare providers, but children go to school, is predominantly female. We can imagine that many of them probably have young children themselves. And yet the rhetoric has really been to not discuss that as if these are separate identities. So we say, why aren't the teachers, or the childcare providers doing their job? They should be open, without paying any attention to, if I'm a teacher and I'm supposed to be attending to my class full time, and I have a three-year-old, who's taking care of my three-year-old?

Jill Anderson:     Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jennie Weiner:    And I just feel like in the public discourse around school opening, they're not opening the idea, or understanding that many of these are young women with families who are facing the same challenges that I'm facing is not discussed. And I would just put that to people about how that reinforces our lack of discussion about women's rights and gender equity within the context of our society when we do not attend to that as part of the problem of schools reopening.

Jill Anderson:    Well, since you've mentioned the, what you've just written about, which is your own experience, in a collection of essays being released looking at pandemic parenting, you talk about that experience of juggling the challenges of parenting while working in academia. So what has it been like for you?

Jennie Weiner:     Dislocating, discombobulating. So I have twin nine year old boys, both of whom have been home with me for over a year now, now they've had full-time learning, but not in person. I think one of the things that's been so terribly difficult is so much of the gymnastics that I've had to do over the course of my career to simply persist and thrive in a space that's not made for me. So to constantly be in spaces and having to make really tough choices about, should I go to a conference? And then when I get to the conference, people say, well, who is taking care of your kids? Or I'm missing something that's happening at home, and I'm feeling that's really difficult and hard. And I've made so many, what I perceive to be sacrifices in a system that is not made for working mothers, or for people from non-traditional backgrounds in that space. And then to be home all the time and feel like some of that is slipping away, my identity and my ability to thrive in my workspace just gone.

And even though I think externally there's a sense that everybody's going through it, and I should just not be so hard on myself, I don't believe that the system will actually excuse women who have taken this time. I think that I have a lot of fear that if I don't keep juggling and pretzeling, that's not something I'm ever going to be able to make up, because, again, I've had to fight so hard just to feel like I had a space at the table. It's difficult to lose something that you feel like you've fought so hard for.

Jill Anderson:    Yeah. You raised an interesting point because there have been some predictions made about how far this pandemic will definitely set women off course, and it's alarming. We're talking not just like, Oh, this is going to set women off by a couple of years, this is decades of setbacks from just this one year, year and a half, whatever it ends up being.

Jennie Weiner:     Yeah. Basically like 1970s or something, yeah.

Jill Anderson:    Which is crazy.

Jennie Weiner:    It is really crazy. I think it tells you how precarious everything was, and on whoms back the progress had it been made. So because there haven't been attention to, let's say structural and systemic changes to our policies, to issues a place like the ERA for example, the Equal Rights Amendment never passed. The fact that many black and brown women are in low wage jobs and we can't pass a decent minimum wage. The fact that we don't have universal childcare, or universal pre-K. So what happens? Well, women behind the scenes address all those issues behind the scenes. And so every success to a large degree has been on the backs of the people who have been discriminated against, we've elbowed, and we've worked, and we've suffered, and we've done what we needed to do, but individual hard work is not a way to fix systems of oppression, it helps, but you can see, right? Once that fell down and we didn't have any systems to support us, the marbles all fell out of the bag.

I only hope, perhaps, that people will remember and understand the veil is off, that depending on women to just do more is not a way to create a just society. And we have to fight for these kinds of systemic changes that are going to make things different regardless of what the future holds in terms of calamity, or change, or whatever the fact may be.

Jill Anderson:     We've heard a lot about the glass ceiling, especially even recently with Kamala Harris being elected, and a lot of us have heard of that term before, what is the glass cliff?

Jennie Weiner:    So the glass cliff was brought about by some research by Haslam and Ryan, and they're British researchers. And I read in the newspaper, there was an article about how the FTSE Index, their publicly traded companies, how women were in charge of all the ones that were doing poorly, and therefore women must be poor leaders. They did analysis, and basically what they found was that women were more likely to be leaders within the context of companies that were not doing well, but they were hired once they started to decline. So the idea is that women and people of color, people who are traditionally marginalized from those kinds of leadership opportunities, are given the opportunity to lead, but only when an organization is in decline. And now, of course, that comes with a bunch of other parameters, right? So usually that also means often that you have a highly activist board.

So women who end up taking these positions spend far more time catering and having to deal with activist board members than do men. Additionally, when women start to improve the organization, they're not given credit for that. Alternatively, if something that looks like it's doomed to fail, and then they take over fails, they're blamed, and most often a white man is put back into the position after them. I'm actually studying this within the context of education superintendents, but I noticed, for example, I work in Connecticut, there are very few black women principals in a place like Hartford, but when you look at where they're placed, they tend to be placed in most of the turnaround schools, which are the chronically underperforming schools. April Peter speaks about how they're positioned as cleanup women to come in and mop up and clean up the mistakes others have made, but instead of being lauded for that, even when they have success, they're vilified as being difficult, or hard to work with, or aggressive in ways that are not valued, even when they have success in addressing the problems of the organizations. So it's pretty tricky.

Jill Anderson:     What is the most important thing for a female in education leadership, whether it's K through 12, whether it's in academia?

Jennie Weiner:    I'm often in places with women leaders, I'm often asked to speak and I facilitate a women superintendents group for the state of Connecticut, I'm so proud and privileged to have that opportunity. I think one thing that often happens is people are upset by hearing these truths. At the same time, because we'd all rather believe, or many people would rather believe that hard work and being really good at what you do could outperform bias, and that's a lie. No matter how good you are, if we live in discriminatory system, that discrimination will raise its head. Now, of course, there's exceptions, there's always exceptions, but on average, across, right? Most women are not exceptions. So what's the benefit of doing it then?

Well, the other piece of this is, if you don't have language and understand that there is something systemic happening, then when someone says to you, you don't really have leadership capabilities, or you're not really leadership material, you might believe them. You may actually begin to feel that the problem is you, because you look around and you're not seeing that happening to other people, or nobody's talking about it. And you internalize those feelings of shame and ineffectiveness, and you lay the blame on yourself. And that is terrible. And it's going to get us to come together, it's not going to help facilitate change, it's not going to move us to press, and push, and fight for something better on the horizon for us and other generation of women leaders.

And so I think it's a misnomer to say that liberation comes without pain because facing her truths is painful. It is painful to see that I can't out run discrimination, but I cannot be free. I cannot be liberated if I don't see how the system operates, because individuals cannot by themselves change discriminatory systems, we need each other. And the only way we can find each other is if we own up and talk about these experiences and connect them to something larger than ourselves.

Jill Anderson:     But it doesn't feel like the conversation about gender bias happens as often, which is interesting in lieu of all of the information that we have about females in education.

Jennie Weiner:     I am concerned about the ways in which gender identity and other forms of identity have not been taken up as part of the larger conversation about DEI efforts, and I wonder how we can have an anti-racist society without addressing patriarchy and vice versa, because patriarchy and white supremacy are intricately linked and both need to be addressed simultaneously for justice to come forward. I do not place one above the other, but I do think we can do hard things and we should, and need to talk about them as intricately linked, and when we don't, we miss quite a bit of the conversation.

Jill Anderson:    To just backtrack on that, is that intersectional feminism?

Jennie Weiner:    Part of the critic of the feminist movement was that it was predominantly women like me, upper-middle-class white women, who did not attend to the fact that they have particular privileges regarding that status, right? I'm not a low wage earner. I have documentation, I have particular freedoms and abilities to assert myself in spaces without the same repercussions, and that needs to be owned and understood. So intersectionality is really, really linked with black feminist thought, critical thought, and legal work as well. But the idea is that we have to attend to multiple forms of identity at once, and how that discrimination manifests across the spectrum. So a really concrete example, I think that's useful to think about within the context of education is, we still have very low numbers, but only 6% of principals are black women, which is just crazy, and much of this is actually a result of what happened in the post-brown era when schools integrated and they fired in mass something like 40,000 black educators, because when they integrated schools, they shut down black schools and fired black teachers and administrators, and replaced them with white administrators and teachers, which many people don't talk about, but it's important to our legacy and why we are where we are.

So if I was somebody who was interested in trying to recruit more people of color and women into, let's say administrative ranks, the reasons why they are not accessing those historically are different. So if I try to just do it through a white lens, right? So I'm addressing gender, but if I only do it through a white lens, I may not be attending to the ways in which racial discrimination and this legacy is impacting black women's ability to access, feel successful, and how they're treated in the role, right? So the solutions may look different, and the ways in which I engage and think about them may look different because I understand that both of those things matter as do potentially other things that are the ways in which discrimination operates to allow them to have access and thrive in those positions. So I think the lack of attention to that is really, really problematic. And again, those are just a few, right? We could talk about LBGTQ. We know that immigration status, other things that bring about different ways of interacting with systemic oppression, and then, again, how we might attend to that and think about it if we really want things to change.

Jill Anderson:    So it feels so huge that it can almost feel like it's difficult to know how to take a step toward change. And so even in lieu of the pandemic, which is almost like this dark cloud lingering over it. So what about next steps?

Jennie Weiner:     On one hand you could say, I feel really overwhelmed because of all the things that you just said. On the other hand, you could say, wow, there's so much work to do, and there's so many different, based on my skills, capabilities, orientation, understandings, I could get involved at so many levels, right? I could get involved in my intimate relationship with my partner and discuss about the balance of work and why things are, and start begin to question that, and that would be, I think, a feminist action. There are ways to be engaged in sisterhood to support women in your place of work, for example, here's just a small one. You go to a meeting frequently and your female colleagues said something, and then five minutes later your male colleague says it and everyone says, Bill, that's a great idea. Thank you for sharing that. I think a lot of women, if they're listening to this, may have had that experience.

So you may be with women in your group and speak to them and say, whenever someone says something, we're going to amplify it. So now this time Jill says something wonderful, and then Bill says it, and Bill repeats it, and I said, yes, I loved it when Jill said it five minutes ago. These are small, but I think if we first name things as problematic and situated outside of ourselves, and two, come together around them, right? We can run for office, run for office, if you're listening, run for office, run for your school board, put that in your pocket, understand that issues around fair pay are feminist issues, issues around childcare are feminist issues. Access to healthcare is a feminist issue. Read, study, affiliate, fight.

I'm working really hard to try to imagine a future that doesn't look just like trying to get more women look like men, in the sense of, I don't want our future to have to be that women have to take on the attributes of men to feel successful and gain access. I want us to begin to think about a future that's not imagined, or created yet, but to do that, we have to talk to each other like we are now, and tell the truth about how we feel, and about what's hard about it, and that these things are happening to all of us, and that we're in solidarity, and I think that's where change starts to happen.

Jill Anderson:     Well, thank you so much, Jennie.

Jennie Weiner:     Thank you. It was so fun.

Jill Anderson:     Jennie Weiner, is an associate professor of educational leadership at the University of Connecticut. She authored an essay in the forthcoming book, Pandemic Parenting: The Collision of Schoolwork and Life at Home . She will also teach in the upcoming Women in Education Leadership Program as part of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, professional education. I'm Jill Anderson. This is the Harvard EdCast produced by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Thanks for listening.

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What you need to know about how UNESCO advances education and gender equality

What is the global situation concerning education and gender equality.

Despite progress, about 250 million children and youth are out of school according to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics : 122 million are girls and 128 million are boys. And women still account for nearly two-thirds of the 763 million adults without basic literacy skills. Poverty, geographical isolation, minority status, disability, early marriage and pregnancy, gender-based violence, and traditional attitudes about the status and role of women and men, are among the many obstacles that prevent children and youth from fulfilling their right to participate in, complete and benefit from education.

Why is gender equality a priority?

Gender equality is a global priority for UNESCO . It is inextricably linked to its mandate to lead the Education 2030 Agenda which recognizes that gender equality requires an approach that ‘ensures that girls and boys, women and men not only gain access to and complete education cycles but are empowered equally in and through education’. UNESCO believes in the transformative power of education to foster a more just, prosperous and inclusive world for us all. Gender-transformative education unlocks the potential of learners in all their diversity, contributes to ending harmful gender norms, attitudes and practices, and transforms institutions to achieve just, equal and inclusive societies. Girls’ and women’s education also has the power to save lives, stimulating multiplier effects that reduce poverty, maternal and infant mortality, and early marriage.

How does UNESCO work to advance gender equality in and through education?

UNESCO promotes gender equality throughout the education system including participation in education (access), within education (content, teaching and learning context and practices) and through education (learning outcomes, life and work opportunities). This work is guided by the UNESCO Strategy for gender equality in and through education (2019-2025) and the Gender Equality Action Plan . It focuses on system-wide transformation to benefit all learners equally across three priority areas: better data to inform action, better legal and policy frameworks to advance rights and better teaching and learning practices to empower. A particular emphasis is placed on girls’ and women’s education through UNESCO’s  Her education, our future initiative, designed to accelerate action and leadership in this area. UNESCO supports countries through efforts such as the  Global Platform for Gender Equality and Girls’ and Women’s Empowerment in and through Education , and partnerships such as the UNESCO-CJ Strategic Partnership for girls’ education. 

UNESCO also produces a  global monitoring report on gender equality in education and tracks gender gaps in education indicators across countries and between groups within countries on its  World Inequality Database on Education  (WIDE). The Global Platform for Gender Equality in and through Education’s  Global Accountability Dashboard tracks progress against the gender-related commitments made during the  Transforming Education Summit in September 2022.

Why is STEM education key for girls and women?

UNESCO places emphasis on education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to address the fact that girls and women are under-represented in this field both in school and in the job market. Too many girls and women are held back by bias, social norms and expectations influencing the education they receive and the subjects they study. Gaps are greatest in engineering and ICT, where young women make up only 25% of students in this fields in two-thirds of countries with data. UNESCO’s groundbreaking report Cracking the code: Girls’ and women’s education in STEM was the first to highlight the barriers stifling girls‘ and women’s engagement in these fields, and provide practical solutions on how these barriers can be overcome. UNESCO supports countries to deliver gender-transformative STEM education, and raise girls’ and women’s interest and participation in these fields seen as key for our collective future.

What is UNESCO doing about boys disengagement from education?

Girls have more difficulty accessing education and are more likely than boys to be out of school, particularly at primary level. However, boys are at greater risk of repeating grades, failing to progress and complete their education, and not learning while in school. 

UNESCO developed the first global report of this scope on boys’ disengagement from education , bringing together qualitative and quantitative evidence from over 140 countries. This report provides an overview on the global situation on boys’ disengagement from and disadvantage in education. It identifies factors influencing boys’ participation, progression and learning outcomes in education. It also analyses responses by governments and partners, and examines promising policies and programmes. Finally, it includes recommendations on how to re-engage boys with education and address disadvantage. 

What is UNESCO doing to build back equal after COVID-19 related school closures?

Nationwide school closures impacted more than 1.5 billion learners from pre-primary to secondary education. A  Gender Flagship   under the Global Education Coalition is helping countries to build back equal and protect the gains on gender equality and education made in the past 25 years. UNESCO and members of the Gender Flagship launched a campaign entitled  Keeping girls in the picture  promoting the importance of girls’ continuity of learning amid COVID-19 and girls’ safe return to school. The global report When schools shut  provides key information on addressing the gender dimensions of COVID-related school closures, while the  Building back equal: Girls back to school guide  supports policymakers and practitioners in Ministries of Education and their partners to ensure girls’ continuity of learning and to establish evidence-based plans for girls’ safe return to school.

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Importance Of Women's Education Essay

Women's education is a fundamental human right and an important tool for creating a more just and equitable society. Here are a few sample essays on ‘importance of women’s education’.

100 Words Essay On Importance Of Women's Education

Women's education is essential for the development and progress of any society. Educated women have the potential to become strong leaders, role models, and agents of change in their communities. They are more likely to participate in the workforce, earn higher wages, and provide for themselves and their families.

Education also empowers women to make informed decisions about their health, rights, and overall well-being. Investing in women's education is also a key strategy for reducing poverty and promoting gender equality. Educated women are more likely to educate their children, breaking the cycle of poverty and creating a brighter future for the next generation.

200 Words Essay On Importance Of Women's Education

Women's education is crucial for the development and progress of any society. Education is a fundamental human right and women have the same right to education as men. Educated women have the potential to become strong leaders, role models, and agents of change in their communities. They are more likely to participate in the workforce, earn higher wages, and provide for themselves and their families.

I remember reading a story about a woman named Rupa, who grew up in a small village in India. Despite facing numerous obstacles, she was determined to get an education. With the help of a local NGO, she was able to attend school and later went on to college. Today, she is a successful businesswoman and a role model for other women in her village. She is using her education and success to give back to her community by providing education and job opportunities for other women.

Education also empowers women to make informed decisions about their health, rights, and overall well-being. Educated women are more likely to understand the importance of healthcare and will take better care of themselves and their families. They also have a better understanding of their rights and will be more likely to speak out against discrimination and violence.

500 Words Essay On Importance Of Women's Education

Women's education is essential for the development and progress of any society. Education is a fundamental human right , and women have the same right to education as men.

Empowerment and Economic Development

Women's economic empowerment entails their ability to engage equally in current markets, access to and control over productive resources, access to good employment, control over their own time, lives, and bodies, as well as a greater voice, agency, and meaningful participation in economic decision-making at all levels, from the family to international organisations. Women's economic empowerment improves income equality, diversity of the economy, productivity, and other good development results.

Health and Well-being

Education also empowers women to make informed decisions about their health, rights, and overall well-being. Educated women are more likely to understand the importance of healthcare and will take better care of themselves and their families. They also have a better understanding of their rights and will be more likely to speak out against discrimination and violence. Women's economic empowerment improves income equality, diversity of the economy, productivity, and other good development results. The health and wellness of women and girls, as well as their chances for earning an income and participating in the formal labour market, depend on education, upskilling, and reskilling throughout their lives—especially to keep up with the rapid technological and digital revolutions affecting jobs.

Breaking the cycle of poverty

Investing in women's education is also a key strategy for reducing poverty and promoting gender equality. Educated women are more likely to educate their children, breaking the cycle of poverty and creating a brighter future for the next generation. Studies have also shown that countries with more educated women have more stable and prosperous economies.

Life Story of Savitribai Phule

Savitribai Phule is a remarkable woman who must be mentioned in every essay about women's education. She was the first female teacher in India. It is crucial to realise that in earlier times, particularly in India, women had minimal access to education. Savitribai Phule overcame obstacles like the caste system and male supremacy. Any woman taking the initiative and standing up for a cause at that time was unthinkable and impossible. Savitribai Phule, on the other hand, dismantled all the barriers and fought for women's education in India. She did it by deed rather than speech. She transformed into a live example.

Savitri Phule and her family became a real example of dispelling many stereotypes thanks to her husband's support and relentless work to advance fair education for all. Her success was a model for other Indian girls who wanted to pursue education. They also established the "Native Library" and a school for girls. The goal was to connect with as many youngsters as possible nationwide.

One person was able to carry the light for countless others. Additionally, they assumed care for a widow's son and set up an intercaste union for him. This wickedness still rules society today. Savtribai Phule provided many people at the time with a heroic, impossibly high example. The Savitribai Phule University in Pune was established in her honour today. This university upholds the tradition of comprehensive education. The country applauds Savitribai Phule for her outstanding contributions to education and social transformation.

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Breaking barriers and building bridges: 10 unsung heroines of education.

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Pioneering women in education oft overlooked.

Throughout the history of education, it seems like males have been hogging the spotlight like they're the lead singers in a boy band. From Piaget to Dewey to Booker T. Washington, it's been a bro fest of epic proportions. But hold onto your suspenders, folks, because it's time to give credit where credit is due and acknowledge the incredible women who've been quietly revolutionizing the world of learning while the boys were busy patting each other on the back.

Enter Phebe Sudlow and Ella Flagg , the dynamic duo who broke through glass ceilings like a pair of overzealous window washers. As the first female superintendents of a public school system, they basically looked at the boys' club of education administration and said, "Move over, fellas, the real bosses are here."

And then there's Margaret Bancroft , who decided to take on the Herculean task of educating children with developmental delays back when society basically said, "Nah, they're beyond help." At just 25 years old, she opened the first boarding school for these kids, proving that where there's a will, there's a way—and a woman with a sense of determination.

Now, let's talk about Alice Palmer , the OG advocate for women's education. As the president of Wellesley College, she basically looked at the patriarchy and said, "Hold my quill," before co-founding the American Association of University Women. Her message was loud and clear: women belong in the hallowed halls of academia, whether the boys like it or not.

But wait, there's more! Lucy Wheelock , the kindergarten queen who reimagined early childhood education with a flair that would make Mary Poppins jealous. She basically looked at traditional teaching methods and said, "Why so serious? Let's play!" And thus, kindergarten as we know it was born, thanks to this whimsical wizard of the sandbox.

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Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller , the ultimate dream team of education history. These two defied the odds like a pair of renegade rebels, proving that even in darkness and disability, there is light—and also some really inspiring life lessons about perseverance and overcoming adversity.

Then, we've got Mary McLeod Bethune , who was like, "I see your 17 siblings and raise you a university dedicated to educating black students!" Talk about turning adversity into an opportunity to show the world what's what. And let's not forget her Negro and College Fund , because who doesn't love a good scholarship program that sticks it to the man?

Rep. Patsy Mink (D-Hawaii) puts homemade nameplate on the door of her new office in the 89th ... [+] Congress.

Patsy Mink , who waltzed into Congress like she owned the place and said, "I'm here to kick butt and co-author Title IX legislation.” Thanks to her, we've got $30 million every year in educational funds promoting gender equality, because who doesn't love a little financial incentive to treat everyone equally?

And don't even get me started on Sylvia Mendez , who was like, "Excuse me, but I didn't come all this way to be denied enrollment in a whites-only school." Cue the legal battle that changed the course of American history, because when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade and then sue for your right to drink it with everyone else.

Polly Williams, Wisconsin State Legislator, June, 1991.

Last but not least, Polly Williams , aka the Mother of School Choice, who basically said, "Why settle for the status quo when you can shake things up like a polaroid picture?" With her Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (the nation's first school choice legislation), she gave parents the power to choose the best educational options for their kids, because who doesn't love a little freedom of choice?

So, here's to the women who refused to stand on the sidelines in the story of education history. The unsung heroines of education, who rejected the notion that they should sit quietly and play by society’s rules and instead stood up for what they believed and forged their own paths. Their tales of triumph, defiance, and sheer badassery remind us that when it comes to shaping young minds, it's not about gender—it's about passion, determination, and maybe just a touch of righteous indignation.

Editor’s Note: This article has been significantly edited from its first publishing on April 26, 2024, to reflect more accurately its original content.

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What is the Importance of women education?

Is education for women important? It is said that even in the 21st century we are subjected to such questions. We must remember that if one woman is uneducated, half the population stays uneducated. Education is a basic fundamental right of every human, irrespective of their gender. Just the fact that a part of the population still asks what the importance of women’s education is in a male-dominated society, makes a lot of women feel low and sick. According to UNICEF , education for girls is a lifeline to development. It is the most critical area of empowerment. Offering education is a way of giving power to everyone. Educated women are more capable to bring about a positive change in society and for the betterment of the nation.

Importance of women’s education

Educating women has both an immediate effect as well as a long-lasting impact. In the short term, she will make life better for herself. In the long term, she will make society better. But unfortunately, due to the discrimination that still exists in our country, women are either not allowed to study, or made to stop education at an early age. Therefore, we have put together this article for all those who question the Importance of women’s education. May it be man or woman, if you oppose a women’s education, you are stopping the next seven generations from education. Keeping that in mind, let us see why it is important for girls to study.

Table of Contents

Why should women be educated?

1. her basic right.

We don’t even understand why we have to explain this point. Education is a basic human right and when we say this, we need to remember that women are human too. Let us see it this way. 50% of the population is women. If women are not educated, more than 50% of the population will be undereducated/ uneducated. This is a huge loss to us as a society. Education for women is considered a luxury, but it is not. It is just her basic right.

<<<ALSO READ: GIRLS EDUCATION IN INDIA >>>

2. Bring Equality into Society

Inequality has been set in our roots. We have to combat that. This has been set in our minds from a very young age and that is most boys and girls feel that inequality is a way of life. But that does not make it right. The boys start feeling superior and the girls just accept their fate for no logical reason whatsoever. And then later in life, everyone fights for equality. To promote equality, women must be educated along with men. This makes them feel equal from a young age and that is how they grow.

3. Boosts Confidence

Educating a person makes them independent. It provides an individual with the skills to make them capable of making a livelihood. When a woman is educated, she will be confident and strong enough to earn a living when such a situation occurs. It helps them realize their worth and value in society. Once they know they can earn for themselves and support a family, they feel more confident in what they do. That is why it is important for a woman to be educated.

4. Promotes Development of the Nation

When women are educated, they grow. This helps the nation grow. Women can contribute to every sector. This will make each sector and each industry allow women to work. With the expertise of both men and women, each sector will develop. This contributes to the GDP of the country. If women are undereducated, they will not be able to contribute much to the nation. This will be a huge loss. This is one of the long-term and long-lasting Importance of women’s education.

5. Less Malnourished Children

An educated lady understands healthcare and nutrition. She will feed children healthy food and notice the signs of malnourishment. In India, almost 45% of children’s death below the age of five is due to malnourishment. If an educated woman suspects a sign of malnutrition, she will immediately take action. A young child needs adequate nutrition to develop a fully functional brain.

<<<ALSO READ: IMPORTANCE OF WOMAN IN POLITICS >>>

6. Invests in Future

Women who are educated understand the importance of savings and investment. She invests her learning and earnings in her family. Her education also impacts how she treats her family and raises her children. Educated women understand the importance of education and hence are more likely to send their kids to school. This way the cycle of education will keep continuing. So, every generation will be educated and will contribute to the growth of the country.

Welfare Schemes for Importance of women’s education

Keeping women’s education in mind, a lot of schemes have been made. These concentrate on various sectors to educate women. The schemes are as below:

1. Mahila Samakhya Programme

A new education policy was crafted in 1968. Following this, a program by the name Mahila Samakhya Programme was launched in 1988. Ever since the officials of the program work towards the empowerment of rural women who belong to the socio-economical weaker section. They provide them with education and motivate them to let young girls go to school.

2. Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya Scheme (KGBV)

This scheme is basically for those who live in rural areas where the literacy level of women is low. Primary education is provided to girls in this region through this scheme.

<<<ALSO READ: CHILD LABOUR IN INDIA >>>

3. National Program for Education of Girls at Elementary Level (NPEGEL)

This program is for all those girls who are not covered by the SSA. Such girls can get an education facility under this program.

4. Saakshar Bharat Mission for Female Literacy

This is a mission that was launched to reduce the female illiteracy rate in India. The officials focus on educating girls which will in turn help to reduce the illiteracy rate in India.

Apart from these schemes, there are free uniforms, books, and midday meals for girls. We urge more girls and women to take up the initiative and make use of these schemes. It will help them grow.

There is still a lot of development that needs to take place in the sector of Women’s education. When everyone understands the Importance of women’s education, the world will be safer and better for all girls and women.

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Women Education: Issues, Importance & Conversations - World Pulse

Read and share stories and experiences about girls’ education and the importance of women's education globally. join world pulse and join a thriving community of women changemakers., education for women and girls.

Cultural attitudes, socioeconomic challenges, and other issues impact girls' ability to access education.

In many countries, the importance of women's education is not understood or prioritized. While education is a basic right for all, we have yet to achieve a world where women and girls receive the same opportunities for education that boys and men do. Cultural attitudes, socioecoomic challenges, lack of access to menstrual products, and more are just a few of the barriers girls face to accessing education.

Education leads to Empowerment of Women

Join the World Pulse platform that provides encouraging conversations about women in education. We encourage those who are facing educational problems to join our outlet for the discussion of solutions. It is critical that the importance of women's education in our society is heard and validated through stories, experiences and movements. We hope that these educational stories are able to motivate and inspire you to accomplish educational successes for the greater good of women around the world.

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On World Pulse, women are talking and connecting about Education and leading solutions to increase girls' access to education.

Starting a conversation on the importance of education for women is crucial in promoting gender equality and breaking down barriers that prevent women from accessing education. On World Pulse, women from across the world are speaking out on education and rising up to champion our right to learning.

Carolyn Seaman trains girls to drive social change through tech, digital media, and storytelling.

A Nigerian tech leader, Carolyn Seaman founded the Girls Voices Initiative to speed up the journey toward gender equality and broaden the types of education and skill-building girls receive. Through her Tech Tackle Hackathon Project and her Girl Nation social impact film project, Carolyn has reached thousands of girls. “If there’s no space at the table, create your own table and bring the space to you,” Carolyn says about the conversation on the importance of education. “Engage and demand action where it needs to happen.”

Join World Pulse to connect with Carolyn and other women and girls' education advocates.

After her best friend was forced to marry at age 12, Liz Lum of Cameroon became an advocate for girls’ rights and access to education.

Liz Lum was heartbroken when her childhood best friend suddenly disappeared. After learning she had been married off, Liz spoke out about injustices and harmful practices that are done to women and girls and the importance of women’s education in our society. From mentoring girls to leading initiatives and creating emergency pad kits to reduce the number of school hours girls lose out on, Liz is championing education equality for the next generation. “I won't stop until girls are seen as more than just their reproductive organs,” Liz says. “I won't stop until girls are not the substitute for a family’s financial plan.”

Join World Pulse to connect with Liz and other women and girls' education advocates.

Growing up in Pakistan, Aysh Khan had to fight for her right to go to school. Today, she has a message for young girls.

Aysh Khan overcame financial and cultural obstacles to study computer science, then eventually, political science. In this education for women essay, Aysh says, “...To the girls who are facing barriers and struggling to live their own lives, I say, ‘Keep your chin up, pursue an education, consider IT as a field of study, and use your laptop or computer to empower you. There is an awesome world out there to be discovered. Never, ever compromise your passions. If you do what you love, the rest will fall into place. ‘“

Join World Pulse to connect with Aysh and other women and girls' education advocates.

Get Involved in The Discussion of Women in Education

Join World Pulse today and raise your voice on the topic of education.Whatever story you have to share about education and learning, we want to hear from you.

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Women Education in India: Importance, Welfare Schemes, and Benefits

Pallavi Pradeep Purbey ,

Mar 4, 2024

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Women education in India has been the talk of the world for almost a decade now. The female literacy rate in 2021 has substantially increased by 10.5% compared to 2001. Women's education can inturn increase the GDP of the country.

Women Education in India is the talk of the world as women being educated significantly increases the GDP of the country as they also becomes income contributors in families. According to a recent survey, the female literacy rate in India is 70.3%, while the male literacy rate is predicted to be 84.7%. According to the NSO, India's average literacy rate is 77.7% which is expected to substantially increase with time and learning resources all over the country. 

Table of Contents

Importance of Women Education

History of women education, factors affecting female literacy rate, women education: top 8 welfare schemes.

• Benefits of Women Education

Non-Profit Organizations Promoting Women Education

8 influential women in education field.

Education for all is one of the major tasks being carried out by the Indian government but still, we have the lowest female literacy rate in Asia. India is working but the pace is slow as we haven’t achieved what we should have been so far. Women’s Education is critical to the country’s entire development.

A well-educated woman is capable of managing her personal and professional life. The reasons why women’s education is important are :

• Basic Rights

Education is a basic right for everyone and when we say everyone we should not forget that women are also a part of this lot. Society has a large population of women and we cannot have such a large population as illiterate, it will be our huge loss. All girls and women, whether they are rich, poor, young, old, married, unmarried, widow or with any social status have their basic right of education. Education is not a privilege but a fundamental right.

• It Brings Equality to Society

When we talk about discrimination and inequality as a problem we often misunderstand that it begins at the root level. A boy goes to school and his sister stays back at home, he eventually starts believing that he is superior to a girl. But it’s actually teaching both men and women to promote the concepts of equality and democracy.

• It Makes them Empower, Independent, and Helps Build Self-confidence.

Education is very important for everyone and it helps to develop skills to make an individual capable of offering services to others and earning a livelihood. If a woman is educated and is capable of earning and bearing her own expenses she does not need to be dependent on others or family for her own requirements. This brings confidence in them to make their own decisions and realize their own worth and uniqueness.

Women Education in India

After Independence, women were liberated from the custom of in-house traditions. Higher education came into practice as the constitution framed the Right to Education. Article 45 of the Indian constitution talks about compulsory education for children. The new India surpassed the myth and stereotype of what is preferable and non-preferable to women.

Today, what we know about women's education is entirely different from the early stages. Women have already modified gender roles and eradicated some strong wrong beliefs from the minds of people. But now, women have started working towards achieving goals and being independent to make any situation favoring their interests. The holistic approach towards the working environment makes them dazzle even in the lame light.

The female literacy rate from 1991-2021 increased by 10.5%, whereas the male literacy rate rose by 11.72%. Below is the percentage of female literacy rate in different census years.

During the Vedic Period, women enjoyed equality in all spheres of life. India was a glorified nation, and even other fellow citizens used to hail down because of its greatness. And people were incredibly vigilant towards Atharvaveda, Upanayana, etc., as reading and learning them are considered sacred. They were advised to study distinctive texts, practice them to decipher all twigs of knowledge.

Although after coming through a meticulous stage, the aura for women's education declined severely. The stigma of being confined to their respective houses snatched the significance of women's education in India.

During the period of Buddhism, women all together started strengthening the glories of life. Many prestigious Universities were established, and women got enrolled in allied courses to study. Moreover, women are well-versed in philosophical studies and usually advised on the establishment of any reforms.

Women's education has been a blistering subject matter for insightful discussions all around the globe for a long time. We often hear people talk about how education is the primary tool to govern and achieve anything you want. It is one such tool no thief can steal.

Many institutes, universities, colleges, and schools are established to educate the youth of our nation. Parents' trust has made their children believe in themselves and has made their minds free of pessimistic thoughts. Yet, globally, more than two-thirds of women are illiterate of 796 million illiterate people.

The dilemma lies in an individual's education based on what education is to the family rather than the entire nation. The overall literacy rate in India is 74%, whereas the female literacy rate is 64.6%, which is drastically increasing every year through various government benefits offered.

Different factors found to be responsible for the decrease in the female literacy rate.

• Social discrimination
• Gender inequality
• Occupation of girl child in domestic chores
• Economic exploitation

Other reasons that are commonly mentioned for girls' drop-out rates at the primary and middle school level are,

• Costs too much
• Less interest in studies
• Early-age marriage
• Required for work in the family business or farm
• Required for household work

Apart from the above reasons, the non-availability of educational centers in close proximity, unsafe means of travel, and lack of proper toilets are additional reasons for girls drop-outs.

India has done significantly well in providing education to the citizens of the nation. The nation's rate is 73.2%, of which 59% of women are literate. The government has established many welfare schemes for motivating women's education in India. The following are a few welfare schemes.

1. Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao

The Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao social campaign was launched on 22nd January 2015 and is famous for women's empowerment. The scheme aims to exterminate female foeticide and access them with an appropriate education.

2. Working Women Hostels

The Working Women Hostels scheme was established to provide a working environment that includes accommodation facilities where women may get more employment opportunities.

3. Support the Training and Employment Programme (STEP)

These schemes provide adequate education and uplift women to be self-employed or bidding entrepreneurs in various sectors. This scheme is open to women above the age of 16.

4. Mahila- E- Haat

The Mahila scheme was launched in 2016 by the Ministry of Women and Child Development. It provides a platform to let women entrepreneurs or women with small-scale businesses display or sell their products and services.

Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Employment of Adolescent Girls (RGSEAG), known as SABLA, was initiated on 1st April 2011 by the Government of India. It aims at providing food and nutritious ingredients.

6. Swadhar Greh

The Swadhar Greh scheme was established in 2002 by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development. The scheme provides shelter, food, care, and clothing to unaided women. Thus, women abandoned by their families and women who survived any disaster are aided with basic needs.

7. One-Stop Centre Scheme

The One-stop Centre scheme was established with the 'Nirbhaya' fund on 1st April 2015 by the Ministry of Women and Child Development. The scheme provides counselling services, legal requirements, police aid, shelter and food to violence victims both in public and private.

8. Nari Shakti Puraskar

Nari Shakti Puraskar initiative is taken by the Ministry of Women and Child Development to acknowledge women by awarding them for their excellent contribution towards society and empowering women.

Benefits of Women's Education

If the nation's women were educated, the generation would be educated, leading to the country's development. Moreover, educating women leads to many reforms, a better understanding of concepts.

Below are a few benefits of women's education.

• If women educate themselves, the nation will undergo a steady population, and family planning would be the priority.
• Women's education would make them self-sufficient, and the age of marriage would probably extend, and women would be more independent of their needs and decisions.
• Women will be able to refrain from dramatic situations and look after themselves and their families.
• Women can examine themselves in various fields.
• Women's education gives power to equality.
• Many social discrepancies will be exclaimed, and a powerful system might be established.
• Women's education helps women to voice out their opinions.

Various organizations promote and work for promoting women education in India. These organizations fight against emphasizing the importance of women's education in India and gender equality.

Some of the non-profit organizations that promote women's education are,

• Educate Girls Bond : It creates new opportunities for girls' education and promotes gender equality by providing education for young girls throughout India.
• Global Grassroots: The organization promotes leadership in women and girls in their communities by employing mindfulness throughout designing a social solution.
• Pratham: It is designed to improve education for children in Mumbai.
• Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED): It is an international non-profit organization supporting marginalized girls to succeed through education.
• Girls Who Code: An international organization aiming to provide opportunities for women to learn and develop specialized skills in computer science.

Women are considered the nation's building block; empowering women is similar to empowering a nation. Indian Women have remarked their country's name and made us proud in every aspect. Below are the influential women in India.

A nation's well-being is defined if the women are strong and capable of withstanding any storm. We preach women by the names of goddesses. We bow down in front of them to achieve success. They are the individuals who rule the world, and we need to treat them with the utmost dignity in all spheres of life to build the most influential and prominent country. New strategies and initiatives like sociocultural practices promote women's education by introducing social empowerment tools with access to education, health care, and access to equal opportunities legally.

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Two women from Arkansas — and the importance of public education

Robert Leonard

April 28, 2024 8:00 am.

(Photo by Robert Leonard)

Kenny knew the truck well; he sold it to me in 2018 or 2019 and it’s the best $2,000 I have ever spent. The truck is now 24 years old with only 175,000 miles on it — most of them put on by me.

I thought about getting a tow to Ames, finding a mechanic, spending the night in a hotel room and the mess that might come from not knowing a good mechanic or hardly anyone in Ames, and then maybe towing it again in the morning to a mechanic, and so I decided to have it towed to Kenny’s shop in Knoxville about 90 miles away.

The tow bill was $700, and I swore next time I went very far from home I would park my truck and get a rental car.

So I was at the car rental shop in Pella about 9 a.m. Thursday a week ago to pick up a rental car to drive to an event in Iowa Falls. I figured I would rather pay 70 bucks for a rental car than potentially another $700 tow bill. A sign on the door said, “back in 5 minutes.” I didn’t mind because it gave me some time to look for fossils in the landscaping gravel by the store.

A few minutes later, two women drove up in a black SUV and got out. I guessed one was in her 60s or 70s and dressed in gray from her hair to her running shoes. She was lean and hard like a desiccated leather rope. When I told her the attendant at the shop would be back in five minutes, she got mad and started cussing at me and the general wider world before she backtracked after realizing I wasn’t the problem. She explained she was angry because they were late and had somewhere to go “right now.”

Someone else might have been offended by the tongue-lashing but I found it fascinating.

The younger woman was maybe 35-40 with pretty red hair and freckles and was in pajamas. I guessed the older woman was her mom as they acted as if they were kin. The younger woman had looked at me with kindness and compassion in her eyes while the older woman had scolded me.

Maybe 10 minutes later, a young man chewing on a Casey’s breakfast burrito walked up, apologized for taking so long, and welcomed us in. The old woman gave him an earful as he helped me fill out my paperwork as I had been first in line. After a few minutes, I walked out into the parking lot with my keys to a Kia which looked like a toy. It was so low to the ground that I feared I would wear out the seat of my pants on the asphalt before I had driven a mile.

When I came out, the younger woman was still looking at the gravel.

“Find anything good?” I asked.

She gave me a big smile and said, “Can I show you?”

She jogged over to me holding several rocks and said, “I just look for the pretty ones!”

As she put the rocks in my hand she told me they were visiting from Arkansas.

“Oh, these are pretty,” I said, turning them over in my hand. “All quartz.”

Her eyes grew big and she cocked her head at me looking puzzled.

“What’s quartz?” she said. “How do you know that?”

I was taken aback. How did I know that the rocks were quartz? How does anyone know a rock is quartz? How could she not know what quartz was?

“I learned it in school, I guess. It’s a crystalline igneous rock mostly formed in volcanoes.”

She gave me a look of astonishment and picked up another rock and showed it to me.

What’s this?”

“It’s another kind of igneous rock — chert. It has a tight molecular structure and was used by cultures all over the world to make stone tools in the past. You can bust it up with a harder rock and shape it into an arrowhead, spear point or other sharp tool.”

Her jaw dropped. She looked at me like I was saying brilliant, amazing things. “How do you know that?”

I didn’t know how to answer.

But I knew she was eager to learn, so I started picking up random rocks and figuring them out.

“Look at this — it’s petrified wood,” I said as I handed it to her.

“How do you know that?”

“You can see it looks just like the physical structure of the inner part of a tree. See the rings? Over millions of years, it turned into a fossil.”

“How does that happen?”

“There are minerals in water and over millions of years the minerals replace the cellular structure of the plant, turning it into a rock.”

She looked at me like I was the smartest person in the world and I had just described something as significant as the origins of the universe. While my knowledge seemed mundane to me, to her it was wonderful. Actually, what I had said was indeed wonderful, in that knowledge passed down to me had been created by scientists and other scholars working and learning for generations, but we don’t often think of that. That goes for everything we know, and we should probably appreciate it more.

Behind me I heard the door of the rental car agency open and out came her mom in a kerfuffle. “Let’s go,” she shouted, walking angrily away toward her rental car.

The younger woman started pulling away from me, walking backwards toward her mom and the car she was getting into.

“Can I keep these rocks?”

“How do I learn more?” she asked, almost in desperation. By now she was 20 feet away from me, still retreating, and she cried again, “How do I learn more?”

She reached her hand out to me, even as she continued to retreat.

“Get in!” her mom yelled.

I reached my hand out in return into the space between us, almost as I was trying to rescue her from drowning in a raging river, but in vain.

So much came to mind to tell her. Textbooks, fossil field guides, college classes, the internet; it all swirled in my head as I sought the right thing to say to someone so eager to learn.

I fumbled for the right answer in those seconds, but finally, it came to me.

“Go to a library!’ I shouted. “Any library! The librarians will help you learn! They will be happy to teach you! They know how! Ask a librarian!

She gave me a big smile, got into the car with her mom, rolled her window down, stuck her head out of it, and continued to smile and wave to me until the car was out of sight.

As I drove to Iowa Falls, I contemplated how a person who was clearly curious and intelligent could know so little about rocks and fossils and how to learn about them. I realized that she had likely never been exposed to a public education. That her mother had cruelly isolated her.

I know people who homeschool their children and they do a great job. Their kids are well-educated and integrated into the community. I’m not worried about these kids.

Gov. Kim Reynolds and Republican legislators have been working hard to dismantle Iowa’s public schools in favor of private schools with vouchers that put public money into private schools. Out-of-state online companies have popped up that will provide homeschooling curriculum in exchange for voucher payments.

I hope I’m wrong, but perhaps the next step is for Reynolds to cut a check directly to those who are homeschooling their children with no oversight. Unlike my friends who do a great job homeschooling their kids, I think many will see it as Reynolds giving them thousands of dollars per kid as an incentive to keep them home.

Some of these children will likely be abused and neglected with no oversight, and we will have more children like  Natalie Finn and Sabrina Ray . Others will most certainly enter the juvenile justice system.

And a great many children who will not meet their full potential, like the woman I met from Arkansas.

Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our website. AP and Getty images may not be republished. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of any other photos and graphics.

Robert Leonard is the author of the blog "Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture," on Substack . He also hosts a public affairs program for KNIA/KRLS radio in the south-central Iowa towns of Knoxville, Pella, and Indianola. His columns have been published in the New York Times, TIME, the Des Moines Register and more.

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• Open access
• Published: 04 May 2024

Feminization of poverty: an analysis of multidimensional poverty among rural women in China

• Na Li   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1103-6864 1 &
• Mang He 1  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  11 , Article number:  568 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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• Development studies

Few studies from an individual perspective have analyzed the multidimensional poverty of rural women in China. Therefore, based on the CFPS data from 2010 to 2020 and the Alkire-Foster approach, this study built a six-dimensional system to portray the status of multidimensional poverty among rural women. The overall comparisons found that rural women were more likely to be multidimensional poor than other subgroups. And the results of rural women showed significant demographic and spatio-temporal differences. That is, older rural women were more deprived than younger rural women. Rural women with spouses or confidence were less deprived than those without spouses or confidence, respectively. From the spatial perspective, the censored headcount ratios of rural women in descending order were Western Region, Central Region and Eastern Region. From the temporal perspective, the risk of rural women’s multidimensional poverty decreased significantly from 2010 to 2020. The importance of non-material indicators was gradually becoming prominent, including education, health and subjective wellbeing. The conclusions can contribute to the development of policies, even if some limitations need to be further improved.

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Introduction.

According to Sustainable Development Goals Report 2023 Footnote 1 , “if current trends continue, 575 million people will still be living in extreme poverty by 2030”. And gender equality remains a serious concern. “It will take an estimated 140 years for women to be represented equally in positions of power and leadership in the workplace.” As a result, women are more likely to fall into poverty than men. The female-headed households in developing countries are significantly worse wellbeing than that of male-headed households (Bikorimana and Sun 2020 ; Biswal et al. 2020 ; Milazzo and Van de Walle 2017 ; Tekgüç and Akbulut 2022 ). Due to the traditional social division of labor, women become the main responsible for housework and family care. Insufficient rest time and low productivity at work can cause time poverty and even mental health problems among women (Arora and Rada 2017 ). And compared with women in urban areas, women in rural areas are too deficient in social capital to withstand the risks of life, such as inequality of educational resources (Radiowala and Molwane 2021 ), inequality of employment opportunities (Buribayev and Khamzina 2019 ), shortage of financial capital (Han et al. 2019 ; Yu et al. 2020 ), poor living conditions (Wei et al. 2021 ), imperfect infrastructure and social welfare (Akbar et al. 2022 ; Wu and Qi 2017 ), etc. Feminization of poverty and female impoverishment have gradually become an indisputable fact (Bradshaw et al. 2019 ). Therefore, how to effectively identify and address rural female poverty has been a key focus of global poverty reduction.

China, the largest developing country, also faces the plight of female impoverishment. Official data showed that the poverty incidence of women was 9.8% in poverty-stricken counties, which was 0.4 percentage points higher than that of men Footnote 2 . The government has given the priority to reducing the quantity of poor women in anti-poverty programs. By the end of 2020, 98.99 million rural poor population had been lifted out of poverty, about half of whom were rural women Footnote 3 . China has eradicated absolute income poverty and achieved the poverty alleviation target of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 10 years ahead of schedule. However, poverty itself is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon, where income poverty is just one of forms (Sen, 1985 ). Multidimensional poverty (MP) is a persistent challenge that people need to overcome. Global MPI Country Briefing 2023 in China Footnote 4 reported that the MPI (multidimensional poverty index) is higher in rural areas than in urban areas. And the incidence of women’s MP is significantly higher than among men in China (Wu and Qi 2017 ; Yu et al. 2020 ). Therefore, rural women could be at a double disadvantage in terms of gender and geography. Targeted alleviation of rural women’s MP is the “key battlefields” against poor population growth. China’s experience in reducing rural women’s MP will also provide a powerful reference for other countries.

However, the observations of rural women were insufficient, although scholars applied MPI to some groups in China (Alkire and Shen 2017 ; Chen et al. 2019 ; Wang et al. 2021 ; Yang et al. 2021 ; Yu et al. 2020 ; Zhang et al. 2021 ; Zhu et al. 2022 ). And existing studies have mostly focused on households rather than individuals (Adepoju and Akinluyi, 2017 ; Bikorimana and Sun 2020 ; Han et al. 2019 ; Roy et al. 2019 ; Yu et al. 2020 ; Zhu et al. 2022 ). As Vijaya et al. ( 2014 ) argued, household-level measures are gender-neutral. Because they ignore differences in resource allocation within households that are gender-specific. Even in wealthy households, women may not have equal resources with men. To the best of our knowledge, some studies have focused on static data at the expense of dynamic data (Biswal et al. 2020 ; Chen et al. 2019 ; Kayo and Takashi 2016 ; Kilburn et al. 2020 ). This will undoubtedly create limitations in understanding the transmission of poverty status and providing targeted anti-poverty interventions. Furthermore, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) Footnote 5 indicated that “a national MPI is a country-specific poverty measure tailored to the unique situation of each country. Such measures generally take the dimensions of health, education and living standards as a starting point, and supplement with different dimensions measured by locally appropriate indicators.” Therefore, it is necessary to adjust the measurement dimensions of rural women’s MP in the Chinese context to provide more reliable data.

To this end, based on the microdata of China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) from 2010 to 2020 and literatures, this research tries to develop the multidimensional poverty measurement index for rural women in China. It aims to capture the static and dynamic status of rural women’s MP in China through the Alkire-Foster (A-F) approach (Alkire and Foster 2011 ). In terms of results, valuable suggestions can be put forward to improve the life quality of rural women. The following questions can be addressed in this text. (1) What is the status quo of rural women’s MP? (2) What are the spatial and temporal characteristics of rural women’s MP? (3) How can reduce the probability of rural women’s MP in new era? The remaining parts proceeded as follows. The literature review is introduced in Section 2. Methods and data are presented in Section 3. Section 4 shows the main results with robustness. Section 5 concludes the detail discussions. Conclusion including implications and limitations is in the final.

Literature review

Poverty and multidimensional poverty.

The original studies are grounded in the adequacy of material economic conditions, i.e., income-poverty line. For instance, Rowntree ( 1902 ) argued that poverty was income insufficient to meet the minimum requirements for maintaining purely physical ability. This income-based poverty assessment of individuals or households has dominated for a long time (Alkire and Foster 2011 ; Liu et al. 2017 ). However, people increasingly realize that poverty is a multidimensional and complex phenomenon. The income approach is not suitable for every situation. Some non-monetary attributes cannot be purchased in the market, including life expectancy, liberty, public goods, happiness, etc. Even if it were possible to assign a price tag on each basic need, and then add up the minimum thresholds to arrive at a monetary poverty line, it would not guarantee individuals with incomes at or even above the poverty line to actually spend their money on minimal basic needs packages (Thorbecke 2013 ). It is not accurate enough to draw conclusions from an economic perspective alone, as the causes of poverty also change over time (Liu and Xu 2016 ).

Amartya Sen put forward the capability approach to provide a powerful guide for rethinking poverty (Sen 1985 ; 1993 ; 1999a ; 1999b ). Based on the capability theory, functioning (i.e., achievement) and capability (i.e., opportunity and freedom) are two important interrelated concepts. Except for income, the deprivation of capabilities and opportunities also can result in poverty (Sen 1985 ; 1999a ). Income poverty is just a survival poverty, while rights deprivation is another poverty that focuses on development. Subsequently, the World Development Report stated that poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon, including malnutrition and poor health, lack of opportunity, security and empowerment (World Bank 2001 ). Since then, MP has gradually been accepted in the global. It includes more attributes that may cause inequality or social exclusion, such as health, education, employment, housing, subjective wellbeing, social services, etc., to offset drawbacks of income approach (Nawab et al. 2023 ; Shen and Li 2022 ). Although it is more inconvenient to operate than the unidimensional income approach, multidimensional measurement approaches have shown advantages in applications, including the dashboard approach, the composite indices approach, Venn diagrams, the dominance approach, statistical approaches and fuzzy sets (Nawab et al. 2023 ; Nasri and Belhadj 2017 ).

Particularly, the A-F method is a powerful measurement tool of MP (Alkire and Foster 2011 ; Shen and Li 2022 ). First, it has a rigorous statistical foundation that is based on axioms of poverty and welfare analysis. This can provide a robust and reliable results (Alkire et al. 2015 ). Second, it is flexible to adjust dimensions, indicators and weights according to the specific context, such as different populations, geographic areas or policy goals (Alkire and Santos 2014 ). Third, the A-F method can identify individuals and households who are experiencing poverty. It not only can derive MPI, but can also derive the breadth, depth and intensity of poverty. It is customized to incorporate stakeholder perspectives, ensuring that poverty is measured in a way that reflects the needs of those most affected (Nasri and Belhadj 2017 ). Last but not least, it provides a friendly and intuitive way for understanding and communication. The data can be accessible to a wider audience including citizens and policymakers. Due to rigor, flexibility, sensitivity, transparency and incorporating stakeholder perspectives, the A-F approach is widely used and well-regarded by policymakers, researchers and advocates around the world (Alkire and Fang 2019 ; Borga and D’ambrosio 2021 ; Koomson et al. 2020 ; Nawab et al. 2023 ; Sadath and Acharya 2017 ; Shen and Li 2022 ). It has captured the poverty in more than 100 developing countries, reflecting the poverty level of individuals or households on different dimensions (Alkire and Santos 2014 ). This is why the A-F approach is also adopted in this study.

Rural women’s multidimensional poverty and identification factors

In the Sen’s theory, unequal ability (opportunity and freedom) is also the core of gender inequality (Sen 1995 ). Although women pay a lot for daily housework, it is often ignored when calculating their contributions to the household due to direct monetary benefits not being produced (Sen 1999a ). In some developing countries, deep-rooted ideas, such as patriarchal and raising sons for retirement, not only cause an imbalance in the birth ratio of boys and girls (Jayachandran 2015 ), but also deprive women’s opportunities and rights. Even in some developed countries, women have less access to higher education than men, but are more exposed to punishment or violence (Kleven et al. 2019 ). For a long time, discrimination against women’s rights has plagued social development.

The phenomenon of female impoverishment is prominent in low-income countries. For example, poor females lived more difficult than poor males in Nicaragua where gender inequality Footnote 6 exceeded 10% (Espinoza-Delgado and Klasen 2018 ). This trend also can be found in some high-income countries like South Korea (Hwang and Nam 2020 ), Japan (Kayo and Takashi 2016 ) and Germany (Suppa 2016 ). Due to differences of resources and customs in urban and rural areas, rural women are more impoverished than rural men (Biswal et al. 2020 ). For example, Bikorimana and Sun ( 2020 ) reported that female-headed households were more multidimensional poor than male-headed households in Rwanda. The headcount ratio of rural MP was 6 times higher than that of urban MP in other Africa countries (Megbowon 2018 ). Showed that the feminization of MP was significant in rural Odisha. When other conditions keep constant, the MPI increased to 0.648 if a person was female. And rural women were overrepresented in severe deprivation, including schooling, employment, social participation and so on. There was also a significant gender inequality in poverty in Turkey, ranging from 0.3 to 0.35 in all regions, and females were more disadvantaged than males (Tekgüç and Akbulut 2022 ).

Although some conclusions are similar in the prior literature, there are still some differences in the specific values of rural women’s MP. As recommended by the OPHI, country-specific methodological considerations need to be used to capture national data. It has an advantage in obtaining individual data to support poverty governance. Accordingly, scholars employed individualized indicators to measure the female MPI in different times and places. For example, drawing from four dimensions including income, health, schooling and social protection, Kayo and Takashi ( 2016 ) found that female impoverishment was significant in China, Japan and Korea. Covarrubias ( 2023 ) used five dimensions to measure the gender difference of MP in Mexico, including education, housing, health, time privation and access to basic services in the dwelling. Kilburn et al. ( 2020 ) built a system with six dimensions to measure young women’s MP in South Africa, i.e., education, food or health, protection, social relationship, psychological wellbeing and economic agency. It can be seen that dimensions are gradually enriched over time, ranging from 3 dimensions to 6 dimensions. And non-material factors such as subjective wellbeing have been included in the measurement (Decancq et al. 2019 ).

Based on the above, this study adjusted the measure dimensions to identify rural women’s MP in China. On the one hand, the capability approach argued that life quality is triggered by far more than economic status. And the deprivation of abilities and opportunities is the root of poverty (Sen 1985 ; 1999a ). Human needs should be effectively addressed to prevent poverty, including but not limited to income, health, education, welfare and wellbeing (Alkire, 2005 ). On the other hand, rural women are still at a relative disadvantage in terms of income, education, and welfare protection (Covarrubias 2023 ; Han et al. 2019 ; Wu and Qi 2017 ; Yu et al. 2020 ). The Outline for Women’s Development in China (2021–2030) Footnote 7 stressed that the government should increase efforts to safeguard the livelihood of women in rural areas, especially in less developed areas. And it should create an enabling environment where women truly feel satisfied, happy and secure. This outline also noted that women’s equal rights to education, health, employment, social security and politics must be protected. It can be seen that material revenue, social welfares and subjective wellbeing are valuable for the development of rural women in China. Therefore, we added income, social welfare and subjective wellbeing into the general measurement including health, education and living standards. This follows both the rule of national specificity supported by OPHI and the policy outlines for women’s development in China. The results can more accurately capture rural women’s MP in China and provide data support for the poverty reduction of rural women.

Data and method

Data source.

China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) was employed in this research. CFPS is a biennial longitudinal survey launched in 2010 by the Institute of Social Science Survey (ISSS) of Peking University, China. CFPS is designed to collect the longitudinal data of communities, families, and individuals in contemporary China. The database is divided into the household dataset, community dataset, adult dataset (16 years old and above) and children dataset (less than 16 years old). Based on the economic and non-economic wellbeing of the Chinese population, the survey is informative and covers topics such as economic activity, educational outcomes, family dynamics and relationships, immigration and health. In the 2010 baseline survey, the sample is drawn with implicit stratification through a multi-stage probability. Each subsample in the CFPS goes through three stages: county (or county equivalent), then village (or village equivalent), and then household in mainland China (excluding Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan). Interviews will be conducted utilizing the Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) technique provided by the Survey Research Center (SRC) at the University of Michigan. The CAPI and its associated survey-management system enable researchers to design a fairly complex interview schedule for members of the household and reduce measurement errors while allowing the management team to closely monitor the quality of field interviews. The CFPS in 2010 successfully interviewed nearly 15000 households and nearly 30000 individuals within those households. The response rate is approximately 79%. Respondents are tracked through an annual follow-up survey. So far, CFPS has published the data in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020, respectively, to provide scholars with solid data support (Wang et al. 2022 ; Wu and Qi 2017 ; Yang et al. 2021 ; Zhang et al. 2021 ).

This study also used CFPS dataset for analysis. Firstly, the samples were selected in each wave based on the research variables. Given the data availability and the research content, the household database was merged with the adult database to obtain complete individual information. And the missing data were removed on a case-by-case basis. Default rates were 13.27% in 2010, 20% in 2012, 25.24% in 2014, 87.93% in 2016, 21.73% in 2018 and 20.86% in 2020, respectively. However, the missing rate of BMI in 2016 (over 50%) was so high that samples in 2016 was ultimately removed from this samples (see Appendix Tables A1 and A2 for details). A total of 133557 samples were obtained in 5 waves, where samples of rural women were 33381 with an age range from 16 to 97 (M = 44.84, SD = 16.32). And there were 7583 in 2010, 7364 in 2012, 6939 in 2014, 6628 in 2018 and 4867 in 2020, respectively (see Appendix Tables A3 and A4 for details). Secondly, the pooled samples were extracted based on location areas (i.e., rural or urban) and gender (i.e., female or male) for subgroup comparisons. In terms of the official information Footnote 8 , they were divided into three economic regions for spatial comparisons, i.e., Eastern Region, Central Region and Western Region. Thirdly, based on personal ID and survey time, they were set into panel data for capturing the dynamic and static features of rural women’s MP. Total sample of rural females who participated in all 5 surveys was 8950 with an age range from 16 to 87 (M = 46.64, SD = 12.92), of which 21.75% was in 2010 (M = 41.68, SD = 12.39), 21.04% in 2012 (M = 43.86, SD = 12.35), 20.06% in 2014 (M = 46.07, SD = 12.34), 18.74% in 2018 (M = 50.4, SD = 12.21), and 18.41% in 2020 (M = 52.46, SD = 12.15) (see Appendix Table A5 for other details).

Multidimensional poverty measurement

According to the above discussion (Alkire et al. 2015 ; Alkire and Shen 2017 ; Chen et al. 2019 ; Sen 1985 ; Wang et al. 2022 ; Wu and Qi 2017 ; Yang et al. 2021 ; Zhang et al. 2021 ), this research used 6 dimensions for measures, including income, health, education, social welfare, living standards and subjective wellbeing, with a total of 12 indicators. They were converted into binary variables (“1 = the deprived” and “0 = the non-deprived”) by cutoff values. The details are as follows.

Given that some rural women were still in school or at home, the household net income per capita was used to measure the income dimension. It was measured based on the annual standard to better match the social conditions. The official poverty lines are 2300 CNY in 2010, 2625 CNY in 2012, 2800 CNY in 2014, 2995 CNY in 2018 and 4000 CNY in 2020 Footnote 9 . If the household net income per capita is below the poverty line in the corresponding year, individuals are deprived. The assigned value is 1, otherwise it is 0.

It is worth noting that China has implemented nine-year compulsory education. And according to other domestic scholars (Wang et al. 2022 ; Zhang et al. 2021 ), the critical value of schooling is set to 9. Persons with less than 9 years of schooling are deprived. The assigned value is 1, otherwise it is 0.

BMI, chronic diseases and self-rated health were selected for the measurement of health dimension. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), BMI is measured as weight divided by the square of height (i.e., kg/m²). In line with most studies (Alkire and Fang 2019 ; Alkire and Shen 2017 ; Batana 2013 ; Wu and Qi 2017 ; Zhang et al. 2021 ), people with less than 18.5 BMI are undernourished. The assigned value is 1, otherwise it is 0. Similarly, persons with chronic diseases during six months and poor self-rated health are assigned a value of 1 respectively, otherwise they are assigned 0.

For the social welfare dimension, medical insurance and pension insurance were regarded as indicators. People without either form of medical insurance are deprived. The assigned value is 1, otherwise it is 0. The same applies to pension insurance.

Living standards were measured by the housing asset, drinking water, and cooking fuel. If the ownership of houses does not belong to one’s own (family), it is considered to be deprived of housing asset. Likewise, people without access to clean energy or clean water are considered to be deprived. The assigned values are 1, respectively, otherwise they are 0.

According to authoritative scholars (Diener 2009 ; Diener et al. 2018 ; Kahneman and Krueger 2006 ), subjective wellbeing is an evaluation of people’s psychological perceptions. It is closely related to people’s psychological health and life quality. It is usually measured by life satisfaction, happiness and depression (Kahneman and Krueger 2006 ). In this way, this study regarded life satisfaction and depression as indicators of subjective wellbeing. To ensure that the depression scales were as consistent as possible, the CES-D 6 items in 2010 CFPS were used as the baseline, including emotional frustration, emotional tension, fidgeting, sense of hope, sense of difficulty, and sense of meaning in life. The recoded options were “1 = hardly ever (less than a day)”, “2 = some of the time (1–2 days)”, “3 = often (3–4 days)”, and “4 = most of the time (5–7 days)”. If a total score is greater than 10, it is considered to be depressed. The assigned value is 1, otherwise it is 0. The details can be seen in Table 1 .

The A-F method

The A-F dual-cutoff approach is the development of Foster–Greer–Thorbecke (FGT) for poverty measurement (Foster et al. 1984 ). The first step is to identify whether the individual or household is deprived in each indicator. The second step is to identify whether the individual or household is multidimensionally deprived in all dimensions. The identification process of MP is as follows.

Specifically, the total number of assumed samples is N, and each sample has D indicators to assess the deprived levels. Then the matrix of \(N\times D\) can be formed, we can let \(yij\in \left(\begin{array}{ccc}{y}_{11} & \ldots & {y}_{1D}\\ \vdots & \ddots & \vdots \\ {y}_{N1} & \cdots & yND\end{array}\right)\) , denoting the value of individual i ( i  = 1, 2, …, N) on dimension j ( j  = 1, 2, …, D).

Firstly, we need to identify the deprivation indicator, i.e., to clarify whether an individual is deprived at a particular indicator. Set the threshold value of each indicator as \(zj\) , if \(yij \,< \,zj\) , it indicates that individual i is deprived in dimension j , with a value of 1, otherwise with a value of 0. The new deprivation matrix is satisfied, i.e., Eq. ( 1 ).

Secondly, the total deprivation score of individual i on all dimensions is calculated by the weights of each indicator ( \(wj\) ), i.e., Eq. ( 2 ).

There are two methods of weight identification, including equal weight and non-equal weight. In line with prior works (Alkire et al. 2015 ; Wang et al. 2022 ; Wu and Qi 2017 ; Yang et al. 2021 ; Zhang et al. 2021 ), this study used the dimensional equal weight approach for assignment. Given the correlation analysis of all indicators, the correlation coefficients are below 0.3 and the values of variance inflation factor (VIF) are less than 4 (see Appendix Table A6 ). It indicates that there is no strong correlation and co-linearity between the indicators with equal weights.

Thirdly, by setting the deprivation cut-off k , we determine whether individuals belong to MP. If \(ci\ge k\) , individual i is MP, otherwise individual i is not MP. It can be expressed as Eq. ( 3 ).

Finally, the deprivation matrix \({g}^{0}\) can be transformed into a censorship deletion matrix, i.e., \({g}^{0}(k)=[{g}_{ij}^{0}(k)]\) and \({g}_{ij}^{0}(k)={g}_{ij}^{0}{c}_{i}(k)\) . Equation ( 4 ) is as followed.

For the threshold k , two approaches can be employed to define k , including the number of dimensions deprived and the deprivation weight score. If the threshold is set too low, poverty may be overestimated as the number of dimensions increases (e.g., individuals or households who are deprived at least one dimension are regarded as multidimensional poor). If the threshold is set too high, poverty may be underestimated because of high restrictiveness (e.g., individuals or households who are deprived in all dimensions are treated as multidimensional poor). Thus, other intermediate values for k might be more appropriate (Nasri and Belhadj 2017 ). Generally, if the total score of deprivation weight is greater than 0.3, this person is considered to be multidimensional poor (Alkire and Foster 2011 ). It also turns out that 0.3 is a clear cut-off value in this study (see Appendix Fig. A1 ).

Based on the identification, the headcount ratio of MP can be obtained (H). That is, the number of populations who are MP (q) divided by the total number of people (N), reflecting the size of the poverty. Equation ( 5 ) is:

It is also able to derive the average deprivation share of multidimensional poor people (A). That is, the number of deprived dimensions among multidimensional poor people divided by the number of multidimensional poor people. Equation ( 6 ) is:

In turn, the MPI (M 0 ), which is the adjusted headcount ratio of MP, is derived. Equation ( 7 ) is:

Where, the contribution of dimension j to MPI is equal to the proportion of dimension j in MPI. Equation ( 8 ) is:

Building on the above, index disaggregation can be performed for expressing subgroups of MPI over time and across regions. The formula is as follows, where G and g denote the number of people in different subgroups. Equation ( 9 ) is:

According to the duration of MP, people are classified into three groups, i.e., never poverty, temporary poverty and chronic poverty. Assume that \({p}_{k}^{i}\) denotes the overall poverty status of individual i in T period. \({T}_{k}^{i}\) denotes the poverty time of individual i in T period, and t is the time threshold for determining the poverty types. When individual i has 0 years in period T, i is never poor. When duration is from 0 to t , i is temporary poor. If duration is over t , i is chronic poor. Based on the selection criteria for k values, we considered the intermediate values in this duration to avoid the shortage of extreme thresholds. When t  > 2 in 5 rounds data, there is a visible change between temporary poverty and chronic poverty (see Appendix Fig. A2 ). Therefore, this study adopted 2 as the t critical value to decompose the poverty types. Equation ( 10 ) is:

Multidimensional poverty in different subgroups

Based on the pooled data, the results of MP were captured for comparative analysis (see Table 2 ). The overall picture is not encouraging with a high headcount ratio (H = 0.387, M 0  = 0.16, A = 0.15). The male-female comparative data showed that women (H = 0.43, M 0  = 0.18, A = 0.418) were more likely to be multidimensionally poor than men (H = 0.344, M 0  = 0.141, A = 0.41). Women’s MPI was relatively 27.66% higher than men’s. In the urban-rural results, rural populations were exposed to higher risks of MP (H = 0.497, M 0  = 0.211, A = 0.452). And rural headcount ratios were relatively 83.39% higher than urban headcount ratios. Rural women had the highest risk of MP in four subgroups (H = 0.551, M 0  = 0.237, A = 0.429), i.e., rural women, rural men, urban women and urban men. The censored headcount ratio of rural females was relatively 26.74% higher than that of rural males, 94.26% higher than that of urban females and 160.44% higher than that of urban males, respectively.

The deprivation ratios of indicators showed a significant gender inequality with a preference of female disadvantage (see Table 3 ). Overall, pension insurance accounted for the highest share, regardless of rural-urban groups or male-female groups. In addition to the indicators of drinking water, cooking fuels and life satisfaction, females were more deprived than males. For example, educational deprivation rates were much higher for females than for males, especially with a 29.8% gap in rural areas. Likewise, the differences in nutritional deprivation exceeded 50%. However, the divergence in housing deprivation was not significant, although women remained disadvantaged. Perhaps this gender difference is weakened by the fact that housing rights belongs to family members.

There were also rural-urban differences and gender disparities in the contribution of dimensions to MPI (see Table 4 ). As a whole, rural residents focused on economic income (0.12) and living standards (0.12), while urban residents paid more attention to subjective wellbeing (0.135) and social welfare (0.232). From the perspective of gender comparison, the contribution ratios of education, health and subjective wellbeing were larger among women. However, the contribution ratios of income, social welfare and living standards were higher among men. For example, the contribution of health dimension to women’s MPI relatively exceeded the contribution to men’s MPI by 17%. Economic status relatively contributed 15.97% more to men than to women. Compared with other subgroups, the education dimension had the highest contribution rate to rural women’s MPI, at 35.4%.

Multidimensional poverty of rural women

On the basis of the above, this study analyzed rural women’s data to portray the static and dynamic characteristics of their MP in detail ( N  = 8950). The results reported demographic features and the spatio-temporal differences.

Demographic features

The data showed that old-aged rural women had a higher risk of poverty (see Table 5 ). Rural women aged over 60 (H = 0.764, A = 0.437, M 0  = 0.334) were more multidimensionally poor than those aged less 60 (H = 0.447, A = 0.411, M 0  = 0.184), with a relative higher risk of 81.52%. Similarly, rural women with spouses had a lower risk of poverty than those without spouses. And rural women who had confidence in the future were less likely to be deprived than those who had no confidence. However, the difference was no significant between the government performance comparisons, although the good performance had a positive impact on the poverty reduction. The reason may be that the evaluation of government performance is not specifically targeted at rural female’s poverty alleviation, resulting in scattered governance effects.

According to the results of indicator deprivation (see Fig. 1 ), the deprivation rates of older rural women were much higher than those of younger rural women with the exception of drinking water, medical insurance and life satisfaction. And the deprived ratios of schooling, pension insurance were more than 85% for older rural women, which exceeded the overall level. And rural women who had no confidence were highly deprived in the indicators of self-rate health, life satisfaction and depression. Especially, the deprivation rate of life satisfaction and depression was up to 44.38% and 57.27%, respectively.

The plot shows the deprivation percentage of each indicator among different rural women. The X -axis shows the categories of the indicators, with different groups represented by coloured bars, and the Y -axis shows the deprivation rates of the indicators from 0 to 100%.

In terms of indicator contribution ratios in MPI (see Fig. 2 ), education dimension had the highest contribution in all groups (over 0.3), followed by social welfare (over 0.16). And the contribution of subjective wellbeing was the largest among rural women without confidence in the future (0.198). The indicators of life satisfaction and depression contributed 0.086 and 0.112, respectively. In addition, the deprivation intensity of economic status was greater for rural women without spouses (0.115) than other subgroups. This indicated that they were more vulnerable to economic poverty as they lacked financial support from spouses or families.

Dimensions represent the contribution of each dimensional deprivation of different rural women to their MPI. Where X -axis is dimensional categories, different coloured lines indicate different groups, and Y -axis is dimensional contribution power, ranging from 0 to 0.4. Indicators represent the contribution of each indicator deprivation of different rural women to their MPI. Where Y -axis is the indicator category, different coloured cumulative bars indicate different groups, and X -axis is the dimensional contribution power, ranging from 0 to 3.

Spatial distribution features

According to the decomposition results of MPI (see Table 6 ), the regional differences were significant ( p  < 0.001). The highest censored headcount ratio of poverty was found among rural women in the Western Region (H = 0.596, A = 0.426, M 0  = 0.254). It was 44.32% higher than that of rural women in the Eastern Region (H = 0.43, A = 0.409, M 0  = 0.176), and 28.28% higher than that of rural women in the Central Region (H = 0.476, A = 0.416, M 0  = 0.198).

And education, pension insurance, cooking fuel and depression accounted for a larger share of deprivation in three regions (see Table 7 ). According to the comparison results, the absolute difference in the deprivation rate of cooking fuel was the largest between Eastern Region and Western Region (absolute values = 25.896). Meanwhile, the relative difference in water deprivation rates was as high as 395%. And rural women in the western areas faced serious difficulties with cleaning water and fuels. The reason may be that the western region in China is mostly dominated by mountains, plateaus or deserts. The natural conditions so uninhabitable that it results in worse living conditions in rural areas. However, there was no significant difference in life satisfaction between western rural areas and eastern rural areas. And rural women in the Eastern Region were more deprived in medical insurance (6.39%), pension insurance (70.8%) and housing asset (9.37%). One possible explanation is that the population density in the eastern China is high, resulting in fierce competition for resources. This has a stronger crowding-out effect on rural women in Eastern Region.

Based on the findings of contribution ratio (see Table 8 ), there were significant regional differences in the contribution of dimensions to rural women’s MPI. Education, social welfare and subjective wellbeing contributed more to the MPI than economic dimension. For example, the educational dimension made the highest contribution, exceeding 35% in all three regions. And compared with rural women in the Western Region, social welfare played a greater role in rural women’s MPI in the Eastern Region (19.4%), while subjective wellbeing played a smaller role (12.9%). Living standards had a greater impact on rural women in the Western Region, with a relative increase of 32.35%. It can be indicated that rural women in the western areas were troubled by material living conditions.

Temporal distribution features

In view of the temporal results from 2010 to 2020, rural women’s MPI was gradually decreased (see Table 6 ). The headcount ratios dropped from 0.588 in 2010 to 0.401 in 2020. And the censored headcount ratios decreased by 34.8% relatively between 2010 and 2020. The intensity of deprivation fell from 0.425 in 2010 to 0.407 in 2020.

In the results of index deprivation rate (see Table 7 ), half of indicators showed significant decline, including income, nutrition, medical insurance, pension, fuel and life satisfaction. It indicated that those indicators of rural women were improved over years. For example, the deprivation rate of pension insurance changed from 100% in 2010 to 44.06% in 2020, with a relative decrease of 55.04%. And the relative decrease rate of medical insurance was as high as 96.15%. One reason may be that social welfare systems has been improved during 10 years in China. The coverage rate of medical and pension insurance has gradually increased in rural areas, such as the Rural Basic Pension Insurance and the New Rural Cooperative Medical Care (Shen and Li 2022 ). Conversely, another half of indicators showed an upward trend, including education, self-rated health, chronic diseases, drinking water, housing asset and depression. That is, those indicators of rural women were deprived more than before. Especially, the deprived ratio of self-rated health and depression relatively increased by 83.74% and 49.89%, respectively. This significant change indicated that the health status of rural women is urgent to be improved. However, the differences of education and drinking water were insignificant. This also illustrated that the difficulties of education and water were not effectively addressed among rural women.

According to the results of contribution ratio (see Table 8 ), dimensions in economic status, social welfare and living standards showed a downward trend from 2010 to 2020. Conversely, dimensions in education, health and subjective wellbeing showed an upward trend, with a relative increase of 14.96%, 67.86% and 32.43%, respectively. That is to say, the material factors were becoming less important for rural women’s MPI over time. However, non-material factors had an increasingly important contribution to rural women’s MPI. That is probably because the government has achieved success in fighting absolute poverty. They are able to pursue a higher quality of life. The remaining details not described are given in Tables 6 – 8 .

Spatio-temporal interaction features

Based on the spatio-temporal interaction data (see Fig. 3 ), rural women’s MPI has decreased over time in all regions. Especially in the Western Region, the headcount ratio of rural women dropped sharply from 74.3% in 2010 to 44.8% 2020. And the censored headcount ratio reduced from 23% in 2010 to 17.8% in 2020. In terms of index deprivation rate, other indicators had undergone significant changes, except for education, chronic diseases and drinking water in the Western Region. And the contributions of economy, social welfare and living standards to MPI had become significantly weaker over time. Due to space limitations, no further details are shown in Appendix Tables A7 – A8 .

The picture represents the rural women’s MPI in different regions, including eastern region, central region and western region, respectively. The X -axis shows the time range (2010–2020), and the Y -axis shows the corresponding values of M 0 , H and A .

The dynamics of multidimensional poverty

According to the time cutoff value ( t  = 2), the results suggested that 26% of rural women were never poor, 26.02% of rural women were temporary poor, and the proportion of chronic poverty was up to 47.77% in total (see Table 9 ). Namely, 74% of rural women were likely to be at the risk of temporary or chronic poverty. And the proportion of rural women who were never poor was the highest in the Eastern Region (47.61%), followed by the Central Region (33.38%), and the lowest in the Western Region (19.01%). Nevertheless, rural women in Western Region ranked the first in the proportion of chronic poverty (38.11%), while those in Eastern Region ranked the least (33.55%). In the Central Region, the distribution of three types was relatively balanced. And never poverty, temporary poverty and chronic poverty accounted for 33.38%, 28.55% and 28.4%, respectively. Chronic poverty between regions should be noted to improve the effectiveness of poverty governance.

Sensitivity to threshold k and t

In the results of sensitivity analysis (see Fig. 4 ), rural women’s MPI decreased as threshold k increased in all regions from 2010 to 2020. When k  > 0.3, index values changed drastically. When k  > 0.6, the incidence of rural women’s MP was almost zero. Under the equal level of k , the incidence and intensity of rural women’s MP were the highest in Western Region and the lowest in Eastern Region. Similarly, we also tested the sensitivity of the time threshold t (see Fig. 5 ). The results showed that 2 was a clear cut-off t value. When t  > 2, the shares of chronic poverty and temporary poverty changed dramatically. The share of chronic poverty gradually approached 0, and the share of temporary poverty gradually approached 0.8 in total. This trend applied equally to different regions, although the fluctuations were larger in the Western Region. Therefore, appropriate thresholds can prevent insufficient validity of evidence caused by excessive evaluation errors.

The images represent the changes of rural women’s MP in the eastern region, central region and western region in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2018 and 2020 with increasing values of K , respectively. The X -axis represents K , ranging 0–1, and the Y-axis represents the corresponding values of M 0 , H and A .

The picture shows the percentage of poverty types among rural women in general and in the three main regions as the t -value varies. The X -axis shows the range of t from 1 to 5, and the Y -axis shows the corresponding values for never poverty, temporary poverty and chronic poverty.

Robustness results

Referring to the measurement of OPHI 5 , we used three dimensions (i.e., education, health and living standards) to conduct robustness testing. The overall results suggested that from a gender perspective, the risk of women’s MP (M 0  = 0.242, H = 0.5, A = 0.485) was significantly higher than that of men’s MP (M 0  = 0.188, H = 0.401, A = 0.468). From an urban-rural perspective, the rural population (M 0  = 0.281, H = 0.573, A = 0.49) was more likely to be multidimensional poor than the urban population (M 0  = 0.146, H = 0.322, A = 0.453). Under the dual pressure of gender and urban-rural areas, rural women still had the largest MPI (M 0  = 0.32, H = 0.641, A = 0.499), which was relatively higher than that of rural males (31.15%), urban females (93.94%) and urban males (153.97%), respectively. In the results of rural women, there were significant differences in spatio-temporal distribution. That is, the risk of rural women’s MP was the highest in the Western Region, but the lowest in the Eastern Region. From 2010 to 2020, rural women’s MPI showed a downward trend, with a relative decrease of 0.69% (see Appendix Table A9 ). The deprivation rate of education indicator was still high, and its contribution to MPI was increasing over time (see Appendix Tables A10 – A13 for other specific data). The proportion of chronic-poor rural women still ranked first (59.08%), followed by non-poor rural women (30.74%), and temporary-poor rural women account for 10.18% (see Appendix Table A14 ). It can be seen that the above conclusions are robust. Furthermore, the findings revealed that data from three dimensions overestimated the breadth and depth of rural women’s MP compared with data from six dimensions. However, China has been in a new period of poverty governance. While ensuring basic survival needs, the government has paid more attention to the sharing of development results to enhance people’s happiness and satisfaction. Therefore, the six-dimensional measurement is more likely to be in line with China’s reality as it takes full account of material and non-material needs. And the results will be more meaningful for national policy development.

Based on the A-F approach, the results showed that female impoverishment can be found in China. And the depth and breadth of rural women’s MP was the highest, which was consistent with previous findings (Yu et al. 2020 ; Zhang et al. 2021 ). One possible explanation is that the strong patriarchal culture in rural areas deprives opportunities and resources for female development (Jayachandran 2015 ). Housewifery and social exclusion further limit their dominance and voice. The real needs cannot be met so that rural women are at higher risk of poverty. Additionally, rural women’s educational attainment is more unsatisfactory than that of other control groups. This puts them at a disadvantage in social participation as well as contributes to their low status in the family and society (Biswal et al. 2020 ; Han et al. 2019 ). As a result, rural women’s lives are more vulnerable in China.

Moreover, the results suggested that the level of rural women’s MP varied depending on age, marriage and other factors. On the one hand, older rural women were more multidimensional poor than younger rural women. Perhaps it is the fact that ageing causes a decline in physical functioning, posing a threat to the survival and development of rural women. On the other hand, rural women with spouses were less multidimensional poor. One reason may be that intimate relationships provide them with additional supports, including emotional support, financial support and living care. Life risks are able to be shared by spouses and family members. However, single rural women have to deal independently with life difficulties, which enhances the likelihood of poverty.

Meanwhile, the data showed that confidence had a significant impact on rural women’s MP. And rural women with confidence in the future had a lower MPI than those without confidence. Confidence, as a positive psychological endowment, can be transformed into motivational behaviors, which promotes people to achieve desired goals through their own efforts (Wuepper and Lybbert 2017 ). Therefore, it is also a psychology capability for rural women to improve subjective wellbeing. From the perspective of government performance, rural women who perceived the government performance as good were less multidimensional poor. Nevertheless, there was no significant differences between good government performance and bad government performance in this research. One plausible explanation is that the well-performing government can address the needs of citizens to reduce poverty. However, rural women’s feedback may be influenced by other factors in non-specific measures. And the individual subjectivity of evaluation leads to a balance between merits and demerits in government performance.

The geospatial results showed that rural women in the Western Region were more disadvantaged than those in the Central Region and the Eastern Region. This may be largely influenced by nature environment and social conditions. On the one hand, previous studies have also found a high degree of overlap between ecological resource and poverty (Liu et al. 2017 ; Shepherd et al, 2013 ; Yan 2016 ; Zhu et al. 2022 ). And ecological environment is quite fragile in western areas, China, such as mountainous and desert areas, occasional earthquakes and droughts, etc.. This may increase the life vulnerability of rural women. On the other hand, poor socio-economic conditions in the western rural areas contributes to the deprivation of rural women. Due to poor infrastructures such as transportation and information technology, they are delayed in information exchanges (Yang et al. 2021 ). Therefore, they are more likely to join forces that lag behind the development of society.

The temporal results revealed that the poverty risk of rural women was decreased from 2010 to 2020, regardless of breadth, depth, or intensity. This is largely attributed to China’s poverty alleviation policies and public services, which have eased the livelihood difficulties of rural women (Guo et al. 2022 ; Liu and Xu 2016 ). In particular, since China implemented the Targeted Poverty Alleviation Policy in 2013, the achievements of poverty alleviation have gradually become visible. This could be a reason why the MPI in 2012 was higher than the MPI in 2010 among rural women, but the MPI began to decline steadily from 2012 to 2020. Additionally, significant improvements in economic status, social welfare and living standards are helpful to reduce rural women’s MPI. It should be noted that education, health and subjective wellbeing still occupied an important place in rural women’s MPI in 2020. On the one hand, literacy is a major factor that influences the deprivation of opportunities and achievements (Xu et al. 2021 ). In the rapidly developing society, the mismatch between educational attainment and realistic expectation leads to life vulnerability of rural women. On the other hand, because of poverty alleviation policies, income is no longer the only problem that plagues people’s lives. Rural women have the basis to pay attention to their own health and subjective wellbeing. Therefore, the importance of non-material indicators gradually increased in this research. Especially, group pressure and competitive conflicts are also prevalent in rural areas, so that rural women face new life threats (e.g., technology obsolescence and culture incompatibility), causing damage to their mental health. This may be why the incidence of depression has increased over time.

Based on the CFPS data from 2010 to 2020, this research used the A-F approach to portray the static and dynamic state of rural women’s MP in China. The results found that rural women were more likely to be multidimensional poor in different subgroups. Ageing, no spouses and no confidence in the future exacerbated the risk of rural women’s MP. And there were significant differences in the spatial and temporal distribution. One the one hand, rural women in the Western Region were at the highest risk of MP, followed by those in the Central Region, and the lowest risk in the Eastern Region. On the other hand, rural women’s MPI had been decreased from 2010 to 2020. The deprivation rates in economic status, social welfare and living standards dropped significantly, meanwhile, the contribution ratios of education, health and subjective wellbeing showed an upward trend during this period. In terms of the above conclusions, this study has some implications for poverty alleviation of rural women.

Firstly, women, especially rural women, in this study are more vulnerable to MP than men, indicating that there are gender differences in poverty. Therefore, it suggests to adopt a gender perspective in the process of poverty reduction, and keep an eye on the individual needs of rural females. On the one hand, we advocate families and society to respect and treat women’s labor efforts in life equally. Even housework is also women’s contribution to the family (Arora and Rada 2017 ; Sen 1999a ), which deserves to be understood and acknowledged. On the other hand, it should establish and improve women’s rights protection mechanisms, such as education, marriage, employment, pension, etc., to promote equality of resources and reduce the patriarchal preference. A “female-friendly” social environment provide support for the development of rural women to improve their confidence in life.

Secondly, the spatial difference results indicate that the causes of poverty are diverse, involving the geographical environment, social system and culture (Zhou and Liu 2022 ). Therefore, we should also adopt a pluralistic perspective to solve rural women’s MP. The differences in regional conditions and local customs need to be considered to formulate targeted poverty alleviation policies for rural women. For example, in view of the differences in rural women’s MP in the Eastern, Central and Western regions, it is recommended to increase direct assistance, including money, materials, etc., for rural women in high-risk areas to ensure their basic living needs. Then, environmental improvement projects in rural areas in the Central and Western regions should be promoted to stabilize the ecological environment while promoting infrastructure improvement (Liu et al. 2017 ; Zhu et al. 2022 ). The adaptation and growth needs of rural women should be taken into consideration when relocating for poverty alleviation, such as customs, social security, etc.. Provide them with a development platform in the new surroundings, and rural women will become more resilient to poverty.

Thirdly, the temporal dynamic results indicate that rural women’s poverty alleviation is a long process. Thus, this study recommended establishing a dynamic tracking system to adjust evaluation indicators based on annual statistical data. It will provide real-time references to improve the effectiveness of poverty governance. For example, it can appropriately increase the weight of education, health and subjective wellbeing dimensions, and refine their specific measurement indicators, so as to provide a basis for reducing the risk of rural women’s MP. In response to the results of poverty types, a prevention and monitoring mechanism of rural women’s MP should be established. We need to be wary of non-poor people falling into poverty in the future, and also pay attention to the ratio of chronic poor people and temporary poor people. This can provide evidence for optimizing poverty alleviation programs.

This research from an individual perspective revealed the breadth, depth and intensity of rural women’s MP, which provided support to deal with female impoverishment. However, there are still some limitations that need to be improved. First, the timeliness may be insufficient due to the secondary data. In the future, we should design and collect first-hand data to provide more direct and solid evidence. Second, the CFPS data are designed for China so that the results are country-specific. It can provide a theoretical reference but might not fully represent the situation of other countries. Therefore, international data are needed to achieve international conclusions and suggestions in the future. Third, although this research provides data support for the measurement of rural women’s MP, it is limited to fully expand the causal mechanism. In order to provide a more favorable complement, we should build a more comprehensive model to explore the causal logic in depth.

Data availability

The raw data that support the findings of this study were originally collected by the Institute of Social Science Survey (ISSS) of Peking University, China. They can be publicly accessed via the CFPS website. An archive is available at https://opendata.pku.edu.cn/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.18170/DVN/45LCSO . The datasets named “CFPS 2010/2012/2014/2018/2020 in STATA (Chinese)” were used during the current analysis. And the datasets generated are available from the corresponding author (s) on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

Data used were from China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) in this research, originally collected by the Institute of Social Science Survey (ISSS) of Peking University, China. And this article is supported by the National Social Science Fund of China (NSSFC) [Grant number 22BSH132, 19BSH006].

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Li, N., He, M. Feminization of poverty: an analysis of multidimensional poverty among rural women in China. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11 , 568 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03006-4

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Minister emphasises importance of early childhood education

Monday, 06 May 2024

University of Cyberjaya celebrating Hari Raya Aidilfitri at its grand hall alongside cultural performances by students.

University of Cyberjaya welcomed Deputy Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Dr Noraini Ahmad to open its Welcome Centre and attend a Hari Raya Aidilfitri celebration on campus.

The event underscored the university’s dedication to offering comprehensive support and guidance to students and education counsellors, said pro-chancellor Tan Sri Datuk Dr R. Palan.

The Welcome Centre, he said, signified a milestone for the university.

“It serves as a beacon of guidance and support for both our students and education counsellors alike.

“The centre’s primary purpose is to provide invaluable assistance to education counsellors in helping students navigate the labyrinth of career choices and academic pursuits,” he added.

Following the official ceremony, Noraini was treated to a showcase of student performances and indulged in traditional Raya delicacies at the grand hall.

Amid the celebratory atmosphere, Noraini touched on education for the very young.

“The first eight years of a child’s life is crucial for brain development.

“During the early childhood stage, their learning and development in terms of mental, emotional and social aspects are critical.

“This is why early childhood education is considered a significant investment for parents for their children.

“However, until now, only 27% of private preschool teachers have a diploma in early childhood education,” said Noraini.

“In this regard, I would like to congratulate University of Cyberjaya for remarkable accomplishments not only in the field of health but also in education and innovation,” she added.

University of Cyberjaya recently launched its first series of programmes for Early Childhood Education, with diploma and degree options.

The programmes are designed to nurture professional educators, providing them with necessary skills and knowledge to foster the development of young minds and ultimately shape them into strong and capable leaders for the future.

Palan said the university remained steadfast in its commitment to guiding school-leavers towards their dreams, empowering them to make informed decisions that would shape their future and lead them to success.

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