that can positively affect earning potential, health, and future opportunities, not just for herself, but for her entire family, village, and community.
Here's how.
Raises Eventual Income
Women’s incomes have been shown to be more likely than men’s to go towards food, education, health, and other family needs. Providing girls with even an extra year of schooling increases eventual wages by 10 20% . Also, even a 1 percent increase in the number of women with secondary education can increase annual national per capita economic growth by 0.3% .
Every year of education delays marriage for girls, lowers their risk of dying in pregnancy or childbirth, and reduces the number of children they are likely to have. Each year a woman spends in school reduces both fertility and child mortality by 10%
Children of mothers who have even a primary school education are twice as likely to survive past the age of five. This is because educated women have more access to the resources they need to better feed and care for their families. For example, the children of a mother with even just one year of primary education have shown a 43% decline in malnutrition.
Every year of education for a girl increases awareness and lowers her risk of infection. A girl who completes basic education has been shown to be three times less likely to contract HIV. Education also increases overall health outcomes for women and their families for the rest of their lives.
Educated women are better empowered and better equipped to combat abuses such as domestic violence, trafficking, and discrimination at home, in society or in the workplace. Girls receiving an education are also less likely to be subjected to female genital cutting and more likely to oppose female genital= cutting for their daughters.
