Taking action: achieving gender equality and empowering women

40 Chapter 3
Female
education can
reduce violence
against girls
and women and
enhance their
control over
their own bodies
Enrollment of young women in secondary school is inversely related to the proportion
of girls married before the age of 18 (figure 3.1). Other multicountry
studies confirm that girls who drop out of school and marry in their early teens
typically begin childbearing before their bodies are mature and continue with
closely spaced births. The result is high mortality among both children and
mothers. Evidence also consistently shows that women with less than primary
schooling tend to marry earlier, bear children earlier, and have more children
than women who have completed primary schooling (Herz and Measham 1987;
Ainsworth, Beegle, and Nyamete 1996). Early marriage is also associated with
women’s lack of bargaining power and decisionmaking in the household.
There is a similar relationship between higher levels of education and the
incidence of violence against women. Female education can reduce violence
against girls and women and enhance their control over their own bodies
(although it does not eliminate violence). A recent analysis of Demographic
and Health Survey (ORC-Macro 2004) data from Cambodia, Colombia,
India, and Nicaragua finds that women with more education are less likely to
report ever having experienced violence (Kishor and Johnson 2004). 5 In the
Dominican Republic, Egypt, Peru, and Zambia the highest rates of violence
were found among women with primary education and the lowest rates among
women with secondary or higher education (Kishor and Johnson 2004).
The impact of education on women’s vulnerability to HIV/AIDS
The HIV infection rate in many developing countries is growing fastest among
teenage girls and young adult women. Education for girls may be critical for
breaking that pattern, by increasing their understanding of risks and their
capacity to avoid them. Primary education has a significant positive impact on
knowledge of HIV prevention and condom use, but secondary education has
an even greater impact (Global Campaign for Education 2004). As Herz and
Sperling (2004, p. 35) explain, “Girls who attend school are far more likely to
Figure 3.1
The rate of early
marriage falls
with higher girls’
enrollment in
secondary school
Share of women
married by age 18 (%)
Source: Mathur, Greene,
and Malhotra 2003.