people and planet

3
they were twice as likely to hold a social portfolio as an
economic one (World Bank, 2011).
towards working women, which influences female labour
market decisions (Farré and Vella, 2013).
Similarly, gender-based violence can continue in spite
of high levels of education. Kerala state, India, has a
high level of women’s education and literacy, yet rates
of domestic violence and dowry-related crimes have
been increasing. Furthermore, women’s levels of mental
ill-health, and changes in marriage, inheritance and
succession practices have weakened women’s access
to and control over inherited resources (Eapen and
Kodoth, 2003). 2
Attitudes towards normative gender roles persist. One
reason is they are transmitted across generations.
Using data from the 1970 British Cohort Study, a study
found that mothers’ and children’s gender role attitudes,
measured 25 years apart, were strongly correlated, for
both sons and daughters. Daughters and sons’ wives had
greater levels of education and labour force participation
if their mothers had non-traditional gender attitudes
(Johnston et al., 2014). Analysis from high income countries
including Australia
and the United
States found that
A study in the United parents’ gender
States found that
attitudes and
behaviour had a
women’s attitudes have
significant impact
a significant effect on on children’s fertility
their children’s views choices, household
division of labour
towards working women,
and women’s labour
which influences female market participation
labour market decisions (Fernández and Fogli,
2006; Grosjean and
Khattar, 2015).
A survey-based analysis of intergenerational transmission
of gender attitudes in India finds strong positive
correlations between parent and child attitudes, with
mothers having greater influence than fathers. On
average, when a parent holds a discriminatory gender
attitude, their child is 15 percentage points more likely to
hold that attitude; the effect is 50% larger for mothers
than for fathers. Girls with more gender-discriminatory
parents tend to drop out of school earlier than those with
more gender-progressive parents (Dhar et al., 2015). A
longitudinal analysis based on linked mother-child pairs
in the United States finds that women’s attitudes have
a statistically significant effect on their children’s views
INTERVENTIONS WITH MULTIPLE
PERSPECTIVES ARE NEEDED TO CREATE
MORE EQUAL SOCIETIES
Multiple stakeholders from multiple sectors can work
together to create innovative interventions that
integrate education in a central role, achieve more
equitable delivery of services to society and build
more equitable power structures. Both processes
and outcomes require multiple perspectives and
understandings. Integrating complex approaches and
viewpoints, with education at the centre, is needed
for overall social inclusion and participation. Examples
discussed below include social protection and rural
sanitation programmes. They show the need to tackle
gender inequality and ways to do it. They show how
education can encourage innovative service delivery,
with positive results for participation and inclusion.
Social protection programmes can have multiple,
simultaneous outcomes, including on education
Social protection programmes that seek to reduce
risk and vulnerability – such as pensions, employment
initiatives, social security and programmes targeting
the poor, such as cash transfers and microfinance – can
have outcomes in multiple areas, from lessening income
poverty to improving educational access (UNESCO, 2015).
Traditional social protection regimes such as pensions,
social security and other employment insurance
represent large shares of government spending and can
have remarkable impact. For instance, in South Africa, the
pension programme was expanded to the black population
in the early 1990s, leading to a sudden large increase
for many in household income. Evidence suggests
pensions received by women had a systematic positive
impact on young girls living with them: girls’ height for
age and weight for height improved (Duflo, 2003), and
girls were significantly more likely to be in school (Case
and Menendez, 2007). Studies found no effects when
pensions were received by men; women were evidently
more likely to use additional resources productively.
Microfinance is an example of why more research is
needed on the multiple effects of social interventions.
Often taking the form of small loans and savings plans,
it has been used as a key tool to empower poor women,
aiming to improve decision-making power and overall
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CHAPTER 3 | PEOPLE: INCLUSIVE SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT