Social Gains from Female Education

Book excerpt: This paper on the social gains from female education is part of a series, prepared by the World Bank, on the benefits of improving opportunities for women. The paper suggests that expanding women's opportunities enhances their productivity and earning potential and thus contributes to better economic performance and poverty alleviation. Education raises the productivity and earnings of both men and women. Over time female education also contributes to slower population growth and healthier families. The Bank believes that in efforts to expand women's opportunities, priority should be given to education through the secondary level, reproductive health, agriculture, private entrepreneurship, and the wage labor force. This paper is concerned with the estimation of these social gains from female education at the secondary level. The paper examines the role of female education, measured by gross enrollment rates at the secondary level, relative to, and or in combination with, some health and family planning services that influence fertility and infant mortality. It uses reduced form estimation of the total fertility rate and infant mortality rate. The paper presents cross country regressions based on data drawn from 72 developing countries. The analysis in this paper generally shows that female secondary education, family planning, and health programs all affect fertility and mortality, and the effect of female secondary education appears to be very strong. Results suggest that family planning will reduce fertility more when combined with female education, especially in countries that now have low female secondary enrollment levels. (DK).