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Another striking trend is the decline in LFPRamong young women and men (aged 15–24),due to a growing demand for education.Globally, the LFPR of young women fell from 51to 39 per cent, and from 68 to 55 per cent foryoung men, between 1990 and 2013. The factthat young women are increasingly staying ineducation is a positive development that couldultimately contribute to improved labour marketoutcomes. 46 However, as the next section willshow, women’s increased educational attainmentover the past few decades has not necessarilyresulted in a commensurate improvement in theirlabour market outcomes relative to men.EDUCATION: THE GREAT EQUALIZER?One of the most important gains for genderequality and women’s rights over the last 60years has been the rapid increase in girls’education. 47 Education, particularly at secondarylevel, is associated with a range of positiveoutcomes for women and girls, including greaterawareness of their rights, greater participationin decision-making, reduced probability ofearly marriage and childbearing, and reducedlikelihood of dying during childbirth. 48Mean years of education have increased fasterfor women than for men in most regions, leadingto narrowing gender gaps. A case in point is theMiddle East and North Africa region, which, in1950, had the lowest level of female educationalattainment of all regions. By 2010, while averageyears of education for men had increased bya factor of seven (from 1.1 to 8.0), the averageyears of education for women had increased 16times (from 0.4 to 6.5).In developing countries, advances in educationalattainment are largely the result of increasesin enrolment at primary and lower secondarylevels. However, advances in tertiary educationover the past three decades have also beenremarkable. As of 2009, female gross enrolmentratios (GER) in tertiary education were higherthan male GER in Eastern Europe and CentralAsia, East Asia and the Pacific, Latin Americaand the Caribbean, the Middle East and NorthAfrica and Developed Regions. This meansthat in a large number of countries, an entiregeneration of women have enjoyed higher levelsof education than men. 49Education and labour market outcomesIn relation to employment, education is oftenseen as the ‘great equalizer’, based on the ideathat by creating equal opportunities for womenand men, more equal labour market outcomeswill follow. 50 However, the relationship betweenimproved education levels and labour forceparticipation in developing countries is notstraightforward.In developed countries, a clear positiverelationship between education and labour forceparticipation generally exists, but in developingcountries the relationship more closely resemblesa U-shaped curve. Women with primary andlower secondary schooling have relatively lowrates of labour force participation compared withthose with no schooling and those with tertiaryeducation. Women with little or no education tendto come from very poor households, forcing themto accept whatever low-paid, low-skilled workis available (particularly in the absence of socialsecurity), while those with some education aremore likely to be able to afford to stay out of thelabour force. At the highest levels of education,particularly tertiary, the opportunity cost of notworking is substantial, resulting in high rates oflabour force participation among this group. 51With regards to quality of employment, higherlevels of educational attainment are associatedwith a narrowing of gender gaps in access toformal employment and increased earnings forwomen. High levels of education enable womento access better paid occupations, and higherearningjobs within those occupations. 52However, rising education has not been apanacea for the disadvantages that women facein the labour market. Young women’s ‘transition’rates from education to employment areconsistently lower than young men’s, contributing