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ECONOMY: 'It's Smart to Invest in Girls'
By Peter Dhondt
BRUSSELS, Oct 16 (IPS) - Sending more girls to school may help poor countries get out of the economic
slump faster, the NGO Plan International says in a new report. Just a one percent
rise in the number of girls attending secondary school boosts a country's annual
per capita income growth by 0.3 percent.
Girls are a formidable future workforce - if they get adequate training. There
are over 500 million adolescent girls and young women in developing
countries, Plan estimates in its report 'Girls in the Global Economy: adding it
all up'. But many girls do not have the opportunities for good education, and
the financial crisis is worsening their situation.
In times of economic hardship, girls in the poorest countries are the first to
be pulled out of school, the report says. Some parents consider the education
of boys to be more important, and girls often have to start working, or
looking after children as their mothers try to improve household income.
"Boys are also affected," Nikki van der Gaag, co-author of the report
acknowledges. "But in a different way," she tells IPS. "While writing the report,
I was surprised to find that there are very little specific data about the
situation of boys or girls. Such information is needed to adjust policies."
The information available suggests that investing more in girls is a good way
out of poverty. "Countries with the lowest number of girls in education lie at
the bottom of the human development rankings," van der Gaag says.
Investing in education promises an attractive return. "An extra year of
education increases a girl's income by 10 to 20 percent; it is a significant step
in breaking the cycle of poverty," the report says.
Institutions like the World Bank agree. "Primary education for girls has vastly
improved, but we have not seen such a success in the succession from school
to secondary education or to productive work," Guggi Lareya from the World
Bank in Brussels says.
"Too many girls get stuck in early motherhood or household chores, and that
means an awful lot of missed opportunities. As our president Robert Zoellick
already said, investing in girls is not only fair, it is also a smart thing to do, it
is smart economics."
In several countries, working girls and women have been the first to lose their
jobs, reversing a worldwide trend of the past 15 years where increasing
numbers of women have joined the formal workforce.
In the Philippines, seven out of 10 people laid off are women, according to
the local women's organisation Gabriela. In Indonesia too job losses have
been greater for women than for men.
The data presented in the report suggests that decision-makers would be
well advised to find ways to stem the massive outflow of female workers and
to increase female participation in the labour market.
The report says that in South Asia, 82 percent of men are working as
opposed to just 27 percent of women. If the ratio of female to male workers
in India increased by just 10 percent, the country's GDP would increase by 8
percent.
Moreover, "wages of women are well spent," the authors of the report note.
"Women reinvest 90 percent of their income back into the household, where
men reinvest only 30 to 40 percent."
Plan proposes a global 10-point action plan which includes providing girls
with education, better jobs, access to land or property, and leadership
opportunities. One of the recommendations is to go beyond investing in
infrastructure projects as a means of fighting the crisis, to investment in
social services like health and education. These enable women to develop
their earning potential.
"Donors like the EU should among other things scale up investment in
secondary education, help partner countries to improve access for women to
the labour market, and ensure decent and equal salaries and working
conditions," says Deepali Sood, head of the Plan EU liaison office.
'Girls in the Global Economy' is the third annual report of Plan International
on the situation of girls. The organisation plans to continue the series until
2015, when the Millennium Development Goals should in theory have
eliminated gender disparity at all levels of education, and improved the share
of women in wage employment.
(END/2009)
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