This document discusses gender and development, with a focus on barriers to educating girls and the economic benefits of girls' education. It summarizes the UN's Gender Inequality Index and Millennium Development Goals related to gender equality in education. While primary education enrollment has increased globally and the gender gap has closed in many places, challenges remain at the secondary level and in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, Western Asia, and Oceania.

1. Gender and
development
Simon Oakes
Philip Allan Publishers © 2015

2. Presentation outline
• Gender and development
• Traditional barriers to educating girls
• Educating girls is ‘smart economics’
• The Millennium Development Goals
• Primary school progress report
• More needs to be done
Philip Allan Publishers © 2015

3. Gender and development
• Development means ways in
which a place seeks to develop
economically and to improve
quality of life for its people.
• A country’s level of development is
shown primarily by economic
indicators of average wealth and/or
income.
• Development encompasses a
variety of social and political
criteria too.
• Gender equality is widely
regarded as an important indicator
of development.
Philip Allan Publishers © 2015

4. Gender and development
The Gender Inequality Index (GII) is a composite index devised by the United Nations. It
measures gender inequalities related to three aspects of social and economic development.
These are:
1. reproductive health, measured by maternal mortality ratio and adolescent birth rates
2. empowerment, measured by proportion of parliamentary seats occupied by females and
proportion of adult females and males aged 25 years and older with some secondary
education
3. the labour force participation rate of female and male populations aged 15 years and
older
Philip Allan Publishers © 2015

5. Traditional barriers to girls’ schooling
Philip Allan Publishers © 2015
Poverty
(e.g. poor parents
need some of their
children to work and
earn money instead
of studying)
Cultural barriers
(e.g. the belief held
by parents in some
societies that there is
little value in girls’
education)
Perceived risks
(e.g. parents may be
fearful of allowing
girls to travel long
distances to school
on their own in
lawless rural areas )
Neglected needs
(e.g. poor rural
schools may lack
adequate sanitation
facilities for girls,
leading to absences
and drop-outs)

6. Traditional barriers
• Opposition to education for girls is very strong in some places.
• Pakistan’s Swat Valley and northeast Nigeria are places where men have taken extreme
measures to stop girls being educated.
Philip Allan Publishers © 2015

7. Educating girls is ‘smart economics’
• If women are educated to the same high standard as mean, it improves a country’s human
resources.
• There will be more skilled workers which can attract foreign direct investment from
overseas (this happened in China).
• Microfinance schemes in India and Bangladesh have helped educated women to run their
own businesses successfully.
• In all these ways, educating women helps grow a country’s gross domestic product
(GDP).
Philip Allan Publishers © 2015

8. Educating girls is ‘smart economics’
Better
education
for women
Economic
growth of a
nation
Social status of
women rises;
women enter
work in politics,
health and
education
Fertility rates fall,
and the health of
children at home
often improves
Philip Allan Publishers © 2015
Can you explain the
varied ways in which
better education for
women can help a
country to develop
economically?

9. Millennium Development Goals
• Eight specific objectives for the global community created at the UN Millennium Summit in
New York in 2000.
• The Millennium Declaration, adopted by the world leaders, promised to: ‘free all men,
women, and children from the abject and de-humanizing conditions of extreme poverty’.
• MDG 2 is ‘to achieve universal primary education’.
• MDG 3 has as one of its targets: ‘Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary
education’.
Philip Allan Publishers © 2015

10. Millennium Development Goals
Philip Allan Publishers © 2015

11. Primary school progress report
• According to the UN, primary-school enrolment in developing regions has increased from
80% to 90% since 1990.
• There has also been a significant reduction in the gender gap.
• In 1990, for every 100 boys enrolled in primary school in developing regions, there were 86
girls.
• By 2012 the figure had risen to 97 girls per 100 boys.
• However, significant differences between regions remain.
Philip Allan Publishers © 2015

12. Philip Allan Publishers © 2015
Western Asia, sub-
Saharan Africa and
Oceania (Pacific
island groups) still
remain noticeably
below-average

13. Primary school progress report
• A key driver was the introduction of free primary education (FPE) in some countries (e.g.
Zambia, Kenya).
• School feeding programmes run by organisations such as the UN World Food
Programme act as an incentive for parents to send their children to school (a free meal at
school saves parents money and also helps improve children’s concentration and learning
in the classroom).
• Conditional cash transfer schemes include Brazil’s Bolsa Família programme. The head
of a household is granted around US$12 a month per child, provided the child stays in
education and has regular medical check-ups.
Philip Allan Publishers © 2015

14. Primary school progress report
• More still needs to be done with primary
schools in some countries.
• Growth in school attendance has not always
been accompanied by an increase in school
buildings, equipment or trained teachers.
• This means that the quality of education
provided can be poor.
• There are also issues around what is taught
and how it is taught.
Philip Allan Publishers © 2015
‘If teachers focus
on male pupils and ignore
female pupils in the
classroom, gender inequality
will not be challenged. It is
also vital that girls feel safe at
school and are therefore able
to learn.’
Professor Katie Willis

15. Next step
The secondary school challenge
• Education remains key in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that will replace
the MDGs (which end in 2015).
• Governments and international agencies are turning their attention now to secondary
schools.
• In much of Asia, Latin America and Africa there are significant differences between levels of
secondary education in men and women aged 25 and over, as the following slides show.
Philip Allan Publishers © 2015

16. Philip Allan Publishers © 2015
Write a list of the names of as
many countries as you can where
the education of women is still
below 40%.

17. Philip Allan Publishers © 2015
Now look at the data for men. Can
you name any countries where
there is a marked imbalance?

18. Further reading
Philip Allan Publishers © 2015
• United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI) has useful
country-specific data on this topic: www.ungei.org
• UNICEF’s education website has data and case studies on gender
and education themes: www.unicef.org/education
• UNWomen provides up-to-date gender statistics and details of
development policies: www.unwomen.org/en
This resource is part of GEOGRAPHY REVIEW, a magazine written for A-level
students by subject experts. To subscribe to the full magazine go
to: http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/geographyreview