article about women's education

The Unique Challenges Facing Women in Education

• Posted April 1, 2021
• By Jill Anderson
• Career and Lifelong Learning
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

The pandemic has exposed many of the challenges facing women working in education. Yet, Jennie Weiner , Ed.M.'03, Ed.D.'12, an expert who studies how to create a more inclusive and equitable education field, acknowledges that many of the gender disparities in the education profession have long existed. Across the sector, women make up a majority of the education workforce but occupy barely a quarter of top leadership positions. This is not by accident, she says, but by systemic design.

“We've had a highly feminized profession, but feminized means both that women do the work, but also that it's devalued because it is women's work,” Weiner says, pointing to many issues that exist in education, such as underpaid teachers, buildings in disrepair, and even an “inverted” pyramid where men hold far more leadership positions than women.

“Many people would rather believe that hard work and being really good at what you do could outperform bias, and that's a lie. No matter how good you are, if we live in discriminatory system, that discrimination will raise its head," she says.

In this episode the EdCast, Weiner, an associate professor at the University of Connecticut, breaks down the gender issues in the field and suggests ways to push toward equality.

Jill Anderson:    I'm Jill Anderson. This is the Harvard EdCast.

Jennie Weiner knows the pandemic has exposed gender inequities that don't often get talked about in education. It doesn't matter whether women work in early childhood, or higher education, or somewhere in between, these inequities play out similarly across the field. Jennie is an associate professor who studies how to make education more inclusive and equitable through educational leadership. Although females have long made up the bulk of the education workforce, they barely represent a quarter of top leadership roles. She says there's many reasons for how we've ended up with gender inequity in the field and society. I asked Jennie to tell me more about the unique challenges facing women in education.

Jennie Weiner:     There are a number of challenges facing women in leadership generally, and then within the context of K12 specifically. Some of these challenges exist outside of the role, which are really about how our society frames the role of women and socialize us to understand what women should and shouldn't be doing within the space. Right? So for example, the idea that we should be the primary caretakers for our young children, which, of course, then creates complications if you don't have paid family leave, or access to reliable, cheap, and effective care for your children, and are attempting to work full time. Which was true in our context of our society prior to the pandemic, but of course has been exacerbated by the pandemic. We also have issues around who becomes caretakers, even if you don't have children for elderly parents, or for other kind of tasks within the context of a family, or an extended family.

So you have all that external socialization. And then you also have, what I would say is role socialization in leadership specifically, which is the way leadership is constructed in our society, and in education specifically, still really focuses on this idea of a lone hero, or heroic person, and I would argue, a white man, with characteristics that are stereotyped as masculine characteristics. So being very strong, or ambitious, or innovative, or aggressive, right? And we see this through our political cycles and in other spaces. So what happens is women may not be considered the best candidates for these positions because they hold other kinds of stereotyped ideas, right? So if you are more communally oriented, which should be a stereotype female, you're softer, you're emotional, you may not be seen as having leadership potential, right? And there's a lack of female mentors and women who are in charge in the first place to tap people along the trajectory.

But also if you exhibit traditionally, or stereotypically male characteristics that are more aligned with leadership, let's say being quite aggressive, or being innovative, we know that women often get criticized for exhibiting those behaviors. So I talk a lot about this idea of a double bind. So you have these externalized pathway issues and things that keep women from having full access to leadership that exist because of, again, our societal structures, and who gets to do what roles, and why, and how we think about that. But then we also have these internalized structures about how we understand and perceive what leadership is, and hence, who should be able to do it, and be successful, and thrive in the role. So it's a lot to say the least.

Jill Anderson:     It is a lot. I think it's something that you can easily look at and see in K through 12.

Jennie Weiner:    Right.

Jill Anderson:    You look and you see a lot of females, predominantly females in education, but you don't often see them in roles of superintendency or principalship.

Jennie Weiner:     So right now about 83 to 86% range of teachers are women. About 54% of principals are women, predominantly in elementary schools, and that's not an accident because elementary schools don't have after-school activities to the same extent. There's also ideas about women and their ability to facilitate, let's say discipline for older boys, and what they can handle. Also, women's willingness to blend their life and home life with their work life. So if I am a mother, am I willing to bring my kids to a bunch of basketball games, or activities at school consistently? If I'm a man, am I willing to do that?

And then at the superintendent level, it's been around 23% since the last 15 or 20 years. So, if you inverse that it's even more bananas, right? So you have, what is that then? 16% or so of teachers are men, about 50% of them are principals, and about 74% are superintendents. So, it's jarring in either direction, but I sometimes ask people to think in the reverse, right? But you have this teeny tiny pool at the bottom of the pyramid for men who are situated in schools and they're overwhelmingly more than 75% of the superintendents, the people in charge.

Jill Anderson:    Right. And is it the same when you get into higher ed and you start looking at careers [crosstalk 00:05:16].

Jennie Weiner:    Yes.

Jill Anderson:     ... in academia, the same reflection.

Jennie Weiner:     Right. And I think what's important to remember too, is historically it was built this way on purpose, Michael Apple, a scholar who studies the history of the profession, talks a lot about the ways in which we had to fill these common schools with an available workforce, people who could read and didn't have a lot of other options, and that was primarily women. So we've had a highly feminized profession, but feminized means both that women do the work, but also that it's devalued because it is women's work.

So that helps to explain why we have, for example, still issues around teachers being substantively underpaid, why buildings are in disrepair, and why we say we value education, but we consistently underfund it, and do not treat teachers with the respect I think that they deserve. And I think it's partially because it's mostly women who do that work over time, but it's also why we've created elaborate evaluation techniques to watch these women who need to be controlled and evaluated and observed to ensure they're doing the right thing within the context of schools. But teaching itself has been really situated as primarily a profession of women, and also then around caretaking as a primary driver as opposed to let's say high skills, knowledge capabilities. And academia is the same way. So it was created primarily for men, and therefore not surprising that it's very hard to break in, or deconstruct those ways of thinking about the work.

Jill Anderson:    How has the pandemic really shifted this? Because this has been a long existing problem, but now we're hearing about it on so many levels and it's getting a lot of attention.

Jennie Weiner:     Yeah. We're looking at somewhere between 2.5 and 4 million women leaving the workforce between the beginning of the pandemic and February of this year. So just that number is just breathtaking. Now, why? And it's intricately related to the things that we're discussing, right? So if you have professions, and you have, let's say a heterosexual couple, one is a man and one is a woman, and they both were working prior to the pandemic, it is highly likely because of the way discrimination works that the woman was in a lower paid field, or if she was in the same field, she was in a position in which she made less money than her husband.

In addition, many of the caretaking responsibilities within the context of the home that are considered to be stereotype female work, childcare, cleaning, scheduling, cooking, are usually taken up by women. So then the school is closed, there's no caretaking, you have young children, somebody has to give up their work in order to make that happen. If this is the parameters under which we make decisions, who's more likely to leave? Clearly the spouse who makes less money is more comfortable, or has been socialized to take on those roles within the context of the house before. And we see that, right? In fact, we actually saw quite a few women who made more money, or had their own professions and jobs, even those women leaving in favor of staying home.

And then we also, of course, to talk about this without talking about races, not really appropriate because most of the women who lost their jobs are women of color who were also in service industries, primarily in work that was most risk for catching COVID, whether that be home health care, the service industries, restaurants, cleaning services. And now they're also home and are unable to work, or have to put themselves at risk to facilitate their child, and their family having enough money to survive. So it exposed, I think things that were already there, but that we just never talked about in the public space.

Jill Anderson:    There were mothers I know who were working in education, who were working as early childhood educators and decided to leave their jobs to be able to accommodate remote learning, or being home with their kids through this time. So definitely hearing that in my own world.

Jennie Weiner:     Yeah. I think what you're saying is really powerful too, which I think people don't talk about, which is, if you have a profession, both early childcare providers and let's say any kind of childcare provider, and educators who are not childcare providers, but children go to school, is predominantly female. We can imagine that many of them probably have young children themselves. And yet the rhetoric has really been to not discuss that as if these are separate identities. So we say, why aren't the teachers, or the childcare providers doing their job? They should be open, without paying any attention to, if I'm a teacher and I'm supposed to be attending to my class full time, and I have a three-year-old, who's taking care of my three-year-old?

Jill Anderson:     Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jennie Weiner:    And I just feel like in the public discourse around school opening, they're not opening the idea, or understanding that many of these are young women with families who are facing the same challenges that I'm facing is not discussed. And I would just put that to people about how that reinforces our lack of discussion about women's rights and gender equity within the context of our society when we do not attend to that as part of the problem of schools reopening.

Jill Anderson:    Well, since you've mentioned the, what you've just written about, which is your own experience, in a collection of essays being released looking at pandemic parenting, you talk about that experience of juggling the challenges of parenting while working in academia. So what has it been like for you?

Jennie Weiner:     Dislocating, discombobulating. So I have twin nine year old boys, both of whom have been home with me for over a year now, now they've had full-time learning, but not in person. I think one of the things that's been so terribly difficult is so much of the gymnastics that I've had to do over the course of my career to simply persist and thrive in a space that's not made for me. So to constantly be in spaces and having to make really tough choices about, should I go to a conference? And then when I get to the conference, people say, well, who is taking care of your kids? Or I'm missing something that's happening at home, and I'm feeling that's really difficult and hard. And I've made so many, what I perceive to be sacrifices in a system that is not made for working mothers, or for people from non-traditional backgrounds in that space. And then to be home all the time and feel like some of that is slipping away, my identity and my ability to thrive in my workspace just gone.

And even though I think externally there's a sense that everybody's going through it, and I should just not be so hard on myself, I don't believe that the system will actually excuse women who have taken this time. I think that I have a lot of fear that if I don't keep juggling and pretzeling, that's not something I'm ever going to be able to make up, because, again, I've had to fight so hard just to feel like I had a space at the table. It's difficult to lose something that you feel like you've fought so hard for.

Jill Anderson:    Yeah. You raised an interesting point because there have been some predictions made about how far this pandemic will definitely set women off course, and it's alarming. We're talking not just like, Oh, this is going to set women off by a couple of years, this is decades of setbacks from just this one year, year and a half, whatever it ends up being.

Jennie Weiner:     Yeah. Basically like 1970s or something, yeah.

Jill Anderson:    Which is crazy.

Jennie Weiner:    It is really crazy. I think it tells you how precarious everything was, and on whoms back the progress had it been made. So because there haven't been attention to, let's say structural and systemic changes to our policies, to issues a place like the ERA for example, the Equal Rights Amendment never passed. The fact that many black and brown women are in low wage jobs and we can't pass a decent minimum wage. The fact that we don't have universal childcare, or universal pre-K. So what happens? Well, women behind the scenes address all those issues behind the scenes. And so every success to a large degree has been on the backs of the people who have been discriminated against, we've elbowed, and we've worked, and we've suffered, and we've done what we needed to do, but individual hard work is not a way to fix systems of oppression, it helps, but you can see, right? Once that fell down and we didn't have any systems to support us, the marbles all fell out of the bag.

I only hope, perhaps, that people will remember and understand the veil is off, that depending on women to just do more is not a way to create a just society. And we have to fight for these kinds of systemic changes that are going to make things different regardless of what the future holds in terms of calamity, or change, or whatever the fact may be.

Jill Anderson:     We've heard a lot about the glass ceiling, especially even recently with Kamala Harris being elected, and a lot of us have heard of that term before, what is the glass cliff?

Jennie Weiner:    So the glass cliff was brought about by some research by Haslam and Ryan, and they're British researchers. And I read in the newspaper, there was an article about how the FTSE Index, their publicly traded companies, how women were in charge of all the ones that were doing poorly, and therefore women must be poor leaders. They did analysis, and basically what they found was that women were more likely to be leaders within the context of companies that were not doing well, but they were hired once they started to decline. So the idea is that women and people of color, people who are traditionally marginalized from those kinds of leadership opportunities, are given the opportunity to lead, but only when an organization is in decline. And now, of course, that comes with a bunch of other parameters, right? So usually that also means often that you have a highly activist board.

So women who end up taking these positions spend far more time catering and having to deal with activist board members than do men. Additionally, when women start to improve the organization, they're not given credit for that. Alternatively, if something that looks like it's doomed to fail, and then they take over fails, they're blamed, and most often a white man is put back into the position after them. I'm actually studying this within the context of education superintendents, but I noticed, for example, I work in Connecticut, there are very few black women principals in a place like Hartford, but when you look at where they're placed, they tend to be placed in most of the turnaround schools, which are the chronically underperforming schools. April Peter speaks about how they're positioned as cleanup women to come in and mop up and clean up the mistakes others have made, but instead of being lauded for that, even when they have success, they're vilified as being difficult, or hard to work with, or aggressive in ways that are not valued, even when they have success in addressing the problems of the organizations. So it's pretty tricky.

Jill Anderson:     What is the most important thing for a female in education leadership, whether it's K through 12, whether it's in academia?

Jennie Weiner:    I'm often in places with women leaders, I'm often asked to speak and I facilitate a women superintendents group for the state of Connecticut, I'm so proud and privileged to have that opportunity. I think one thing that often happens is people are upset by hearing these truths. At the same time, because we'd all rather believe, or many people would rather believe that hard work and being really good at what you do could outperform bias, and that's a lie. No matter how good you are, if we live in discriminatory system, that discrimination will raise its head. Now, of course, there's exceptions, there's always exceptions, but on average, across, right? Most women are not exceptions. So what's the benefit of doing it then?

Well, the other piece of this is, if you don't have language and understand that there is something systemic happening, then when someone says to you, you don't really have leadership capabilities, or you're not really leadership material, you might believe them. You may actually begin to feel that the problem is you, because you look around and you're not seeing that happening to other people, or nobody's talking about it. And you internalize those feelings of shame and ineffectiveness, and you lay the blame on yourself. And that is terrible. And it's going to get us to come together, it's not going to help facilitate change, it's not going to move us to press, and push, and fight for something better on the horizon for us and other generation of women leaders.

And so I think it's a misnomer to say that liberation comes without pain because facing her truths is painful. It is painful to see that I can't out run discrimination, but I cannot be free. I cannot be liberated if I don't see how the system operates, because individuals cannot by themselves change discriminatory systems, we need each other. And the only way we can find each other is if we own up and talk about these experiences and connect them to something larger than ourselves.

Jill Anderson:     But it doesn't feel like the conversation about gender bias happens as often, which is interesting in lieu of all of the information that we have about females in education.

Jennie Weiner:     I am concerned about the ways in which gender identity and other forms of identity have not been taken up as part of the larger conversation about DEI efforts, and I wonder how we can have an anti-racist society without addressing patriarchy and vice versa, because patriarchy and white supremacy are intricately linked and both need to be addressed simultaneously for justice to come forward. I do not place one above the other, but I do think we can do hard things and we should, and need to talk about them as intricately linked, and when we don't, we miss quite a bit of the conversation.

Jill Anderson:    To just backtrack on that, is that intersectional feminism?

Jennie Weiner:    Part of the critic of the feminist movement was that it was predominantly women like me, upper-middle-class white women, who did not attend to the fact that they have particular privileges regarding that status, right? I'm not a low wage earner. I have documentation, I have particular freedoms and abilities to assert myself in spaces without the same repercussions, and that needs to be owned and understood. So intersectionality is really, really linked with black feminist thought, critical thought, and legal work as well. But the idea is that we have to attend to multiple forms of identity at once, and how that discrimination manifests across the spectrum. So a really concrete example, I think that's useful to think about within the context of education is, we still have very low numbers, but only 6% of principals are black women, which is just crazy, and much of this is actually a result of what happened in the post-brown era when schools integrated and they fired in mass something like 40,000 black educators, because when they integrated schools, they shut down black schools and fired black teachers and administrators, and replaced them with white administrators and teachers, which many people don't talk about, but it's important to our legacy and why we are where we are.

So if I was somebody who was interested in trying to recruit more people of color and women into, let's say administrative ranks, the reasons why they are not accessing those historically are different. So if I try to just do it through a white lens, right? So I'm addressing gender, but if I only do it through a white lens, I may not be attending to the ways in which racial discrimination and this legacy is impacting black women's ability to access, feel successful, and how they're treated in the role, right? So the solutions may look different, and the ways in which I engage and think about them may look different because I understand that both of those things matter as do potentially other things that are the ways in which discrimination operates to allow them to have access and thrive in those positions. So I think the lack of attention to that is really, really problematic. And again, those are just a few, right? We could talk about LBGTQ. We know that immigration status, other things that bring about different ways of interacting with systemic oppression, and then, again, how we might attend to that and think about it if we really want things to change.

Jill Anderson:    So it feels so huge that it can almost feel like it's difficult to know how to take a step toward change. And so even in lieu of the pandemic, which is almost like this dark cloud lingering over it. So what about next steps?

Jennie Weiner:     On one hand you could say, I feel really overwhelmed because of all the things that you just said. On the other hand, you could say, wow, there's so much work to do, and there's so many different, based on my skills, capabilities, orientation, understandings, I could get involved at so many levels, right? I could get involved in my intimate relationship with my partner and discuss about the balance of work and why things are, and start begin to question that, and that would be, I think, a feminist action. There are ways to be engaged in sisterhood to support women in your place of work, for example, here's just a small one. You go to a meeting frequently and your female colleagues said something, and then five minutes later your male colleague says it and everyone says, Bill, that's a great idea. Thank you for sharing that. I think a lot of women, if they're listening to this, may have had that experience.

So you may be with women in your group and speak to them and say, whenever someone says something, we're going to amplify it. So now this time Jill says something wonderful, and then Bill says it, and Bill repeats it, and I said, yes, I loved it when Jill said it five minutes ago. These are small, but I think if we first name things as problematic and situated outside of ourselves, and two, come together around them, right? We can run for office, run for office, if you're listening, run for office, run for your school board, put that in your pocket, understand that issues around fair pay are feminist issues, issues around childcare are feminist issues. Access to healthcare is a feminist issue. Read, study, affiliate, fight.

I'm working really hard to try to imagine a future that doesn't look just like trying to get more women look like men, in the sense of, I don't want our future to have to be that women have to take on the attributes of men to feel successful and gain access. I want us to begin to think about a future that's not imagined, or created yet, but to do that, we have to talk to each other like we are now, and tell the truth about how we feel, and about what's hard about it, and that these things are happening to all of us, and that we're in solidarity, and I think that's where change starts to happen.

Jill Anderson:     Well, thank you so much, Jennie.

Jennie Weiner:     Thank you. It was so fun.

Jill Anderson:     Jennie Weiner, is an associate professor of educational leadership at the University of Connecticut. She authored an essay in the forthcoming book, Pandemic Parenting: The Collision of Schoolwork and Life at Home . She will also teach in the upcoming Women in Education Leadership Program as part of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, professional education. I'm Jill Anderson. This is the Harvard EdCast produced by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Thanks for listening.

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Leaving no girl behind in education

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We know from decades of research that when girls and women are educated, we see faster poverty reduction, better maternal health, lower child mortality, greater HIV prevention and reduced violence. Each additional year a girl spends in school can also boost her earnings as an adult by  up to 20 per cent .

As the world comes together for the  Transforming Education Summit  this September, we must remember that all children deserve to learn and despite great strides made in girls’ education over the last few decades, girls from the poorest households and in rural areas are still being left behind. According to UN Women and UNDESA’s new report,  Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The Gender Snapshot , even without the COVID-19 fallout, it will take at least another 54 years to reach universal primary school completion for girls.

The report also cites recent data from 29 countries showing that gaps in upper secondary school completion among the poorest rural girls and the richest urban girls can range from 11.5 to 72.2 percentage points.

Discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, migratory status and disabilities can also disrupt education. Children with disabilities have less access to early childhood education, according to data from 42 countries, and the disparity is greater for girls (only 18 per cent of girls with one or more functioning difficulties attended an early childhood education programme, compared to 28 per cent of girls without). And pandemic-related disruptions to education have further deepened inequalities in learning for girls and young women.

COVID-19 compounds existing inequalities

Now more than two years into the pandemic, despite most schools being reopened, the disruptions in education will leave lasting impacts, particularly among marginalized and vulnerable girls. For instance, the Gender Snapshot reveals that in rural Pakistan, learning losses are higher among girls than boys across all subjects. In the Mexican states of Campeche and Yucatan, the share of 10-year-old students who can comprehend simple texts declined by 25 percentage points among those with low socioeconomic status, compared to 15 percentage points for those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds. Worldwide, nearly 130 million girls are not enrolled in formal education, and more than half of them are in crisis-affected countries. In Afghanistan, girls are no longer even allowed to attend secondary school.

To address these problems, time and resources are required, yet fewer than 3 per cent of COVID-19 stimulus funds have gone to education.

COVID-19 also brought increased adolescent pregnancies, which further threaten girls’ education. The Gender Snapshot reveals that in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania, 56 per cent of adolescent girls from hard-to-reach populations who dropped out of school early in the pandemic were currently or recently pregnant. The pandemic has also placed girls at greater risk of gender-based violence, mental health disorders and food and economic insecurity.

COVID-19 illnesses and deaths among adult caregivers have also yielded lower educational outcomes. As of October 2021, over 5 million children had lost a parent or primary caregiver to COVID-19. For adolescent girls in sub-Saharan Africa, such losses increased their risk of sexual violence, exploitation, HIV infection and lower educational attainment.

Missing opportunities in tech and innovation

The report also notes that long-held biased gender norms and stereotypes remain embedded in curricula, textbooks and teaching, derailing girls’ choices of what to study and what careers to pursue. Globally, young women outnumber men in tertiary education, but in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), women make up only 35 per cent of students, and in ICT, women make up just 3 per cent.

Across countries, girls are steered away from STEM. Teachers and parents, both intentionally and inadvertently, perpetuate biases around what work is “suitable” for women and men. In the Philippines, girls as young as 10 lose interest in STEM subjects, perceiving such careers as male-dominated and believing that girls are naturally less skilled in STEM. Without women role models in STEM, these perceptions are continually reinforced. Women make up just 19.9 per cent of science and engineering professionals.

Gaps in STEM education and careers are even larger for women and girls disadvantaged by the intersection of gender and other vulnerabilities. In the United States of America, the report reveals that Black and Hispanic women in STEM earn about $20,000 a year less than the average for STEM jobs and about $33,000 less than their white male counterparts.

With the Transforming Education Summit bringing together so many leaders and experts, its critical that we take this convening as an opportunity to make bold and transformative commitments that advance girls’ education, including by promoting more girls in STEM fields and prioritizes learning and education outcomes of girls from marginalized communities who are most at risk, and then carry that momentum on to next year when the  67 th  session of the Commission on the Status of Women  comes together under the theme “Innovation and technological change and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls”.

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Girls' education, gender equality in education benefits every child..

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Investing in girls’ education transforms communities, countries and the entire world. Girls who receive an education are less likely to marry young and more likely to lead healthy, productive lives. They earn higher incomes, participate in the decisions that most affect them, and build better futures for themselves and their families.

Girls’ education strengthens economies and reduces inequality. It contributes to more stable, resilient societies that give all individuals – including boys and men – the opportunity to fulfil their potential.

But education for girls is about more than access to school. It’s also about girls feeling safe in classrooms and supported in the subjects and careers they choose to pursue – including those in which they are often under-represented.

When we invest in girls’ secondary education

• The lifetime earnings of girls dramatically increase
• National growth rates rise
• Child marriage rates decline
• Child mortality rates fall
• Maternal mortality rates fall
• Child stunting drops

Why are girls out of school?

Despite evidence demonstrating how central girls’ education is to development, gender disparities in education persist.

Around the world, 129 million girls are out of school, including 32 million of primary school age, 30 million of lower-secondary school age, and 67 million of upper-secondary school age. In countries affected by conflict, girls are more than twice as likely to be out of school than girls living in non-affected countries.

Worldwide, 129 million girls are out of school.

Only 49 per cent of countries have achieved gender parity in primary education. At the secondary level, the gap widens: 42 per cent of countries have achieved gender parity in lower secondary education, and 24 per cent in upper secondary education.

The reasons are many. Barriers to girls’ education – like poverty, child marriage and gender-based violence – vary among countries and communities. Poor families often favour boys when investing in education.

In some places, schools do not meet the safety, hygiene or sanitation needs of girls. In others, teaching practices are not gender-responsive and result in gender gaps in learning and skills development.

Gender equality in education

Gender-equitable education systems empower girls and boys and promote the development of life skills – like self-management, communication, negotiation and critical thinking – that young people need to succeed. They close skills gaps that perpetuate pay gaps, and build prosperity for entire countries.

Gender-equitable education systems can contribute to reductions in school-related gender-based violence and harmful practices, including child marriage and female genital mutilation .

Gender-equitable education systems help keep both girls and boys in school, building prosperity for entire countries.

An education free of negative gender norms has direct benefits for boys, too. In many countries, norms around masculinity can fuel disengagement from school, child labour, gang violence and recruitment into armed groups. The need or desire to earn an income also causes boys to drop out of secondary school, as many of them believe the curriculum is not relevant to work opportunities.

UNICEF’s work to promote girls’ education

UNICEF works with communities, Governments and partners to remove barriers to girls’ education and promote gender equality in education – even in the most challenging settings.

Because investing in girls’ secondary education is one of the most transformative development strategies, we prioritize efforts that enable all girls to complete secondary education and develop the knowledge and skills they need for life and work.

This will only be achieved when the most disadvantaged girls are supported to enter and complete pre-primary and primary education. Our work:

• Tackles discriminatory gender norms and harmful practices that deny girls access to school and quality learning.
• Supports Governments to ensure that budgets are gender-responsive and that national education plans and policies prioritize gender equality.
• Helps schools and Governments use assessment data to eliminate gender gaps in learning.
• Promotes social protection measures, including cash transfers, to improve girls’ transition to and retention in secondary school.
• Focuses teacher training and professional development on gender-responsive pedagogies.
• Removes gender stereotypes from learning materials.
• Addresses other obstacles, like distance-related barriers to education, re-entry policies for young mothers, and menstrual hygiene management in schools.

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School closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic risk reversing the massive gains to girls’ education

Advancing Girls' Education and Gender Equality through Digital Learning

This brief note highlights how UNICEF will advance inclusive and transformative digital technology to enhance girls’ learning and skills development for work and life.

Reimagining Girls' Education: Solutions to Keep Girls Learning in Emergencies

This resource presents an empirical overview of what works to support learning outcomes for girls in emergencies.

e-Toolkit on Gender Equality in Education

This course aims to strengthen the capacity of UNICEF's education staff globally in gender equality applied to education programming.

Fixing the Broken Promise of Education for All

This report draws on national studies to examine why millions of children continue to be denied the fundamental right to primary education.

GirlForce: Skills, Education and Training for Girls Now

This report discusses persistent barriers girls face in the transition from education to the workforce, and how gender gaps in employment outcomes persist despite girls’ gains in education.

UNICEF Gender Action Plan (2022-2025)

This plan specifies how UNICEF will promote gender equality across the organization’s work, in alignment with the UNICEF Strategic Plan.

Global Partnership for Education

This partnership site provides data and programming results for the only global fund solely dedicated to education in developing countries.

United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative

UNGEI promotes girls’ education and gender equality through policy advocacy and support to Governments and other development actors.

Girls' Education

Every day, girls face barriers to education caused by poverty, cultural norms and practices, poor infrastructure, violence and fragility. Girls’ education is a strategic development priority for the World Bank.

Ensuring that all girls and young women receive a quality education is their human right, a global development priority, and a strategic priority for the World Bank. 

Achieving gender equality is central to the World Bank Group twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity. As the largest financing development partner in education globally, the World Bank ensures that all of its education projects are gender-sensitive, and works to overcome barriers that are preventing girls and boys from equally benefiting from countries’ investments in education.

Girls’ education goes beyond getting girls into school. It is also about ensuring that girls learn and feel safe while in school; have the opportunity to complete all levels of education, acquiring the knowledge and skills to compete in the labor market; gain socio-emotional and life skills necessary to navigate and adapt to a changing world; make decisions about their own lives; and contribute to their communities and the world.

Both individuals and countries benefit from girls’ education. Better educated women tend to be more informed about nutrition and healthcare, have fewer children, marry at a later age, and their children are usually healthier, should they choose to become mothers. They are more likely to participate in the formal labor market and earn higher incomes. A recent World Bank  study  estimates that the “limited educational opportunities for girls, and barriers to completing 12 years of education, cost countries between US$15 trillion1 and $30 trillion in lost lifetime productivity and earnings.” All these factors combined can help lift households, communities, and countries out of poverty.

The Challenge

According to  UNICEF   estimates, around the world, 129 million girls are out of school, including 32  million of primary school age, and 97 million of secondary school age. 

Globally, primary, and secondary school enrollment rates are getting closer to equal for girls and boys (90% male, 89% female). But while enrollment rates are similar – in fact, two-thirds of all countries have reached  gender parity in primary school enrollment  – completion rates for girls are lower in low-income countries where 63% of female primary school students complete primary school, compared to 67% of male primary school students.  In low-income countries, secondary school completion rates for girls also continue to lag, with only 36% of girls completing lower secondary school compared to 44% of boys. Upper secondary completion rates have similar disparities in lower income countries, the rate is 26% for young men and  21% for young women.

The gaps are starker in countries affected by fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV). In FCV countries,  girls are 2.5 times  more likely to be out of school than boys, and at the secondary level, are 90% more likely to be out of secondary school than those in non-FCV contexts.  

Both girls and boys are facing a learning crisis. Learning Poverty (LP) measures the share of children who are not able to read proficiently at age 10. While girls are on average 4 percentage points less learning-poor than boys, the rates remain very high for both groups. The average of Learning Poverty in in low- and middle- income countries is 55% for females, and 59% for males. The gap is narrower in low-income countries, where Learning Poverty averages about 93% for both boys and girls.

In many countries, enrollment in tertiary education slightly favors young women, however, better learning outcomes are not translating into better work and life outcomes for women. There is a large gender gap in labor force participation rates globally. It is especially stark in regions such as South Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, which have some of the  lowest female labor force participation rates  at 24% and 20% per region, respectively. These are appallingly low rates, considering what is observed in other regions like Latin America (53%) or East Asia (59%), which are still below rates for men. 

Gender bias  within schools and classrooms may also reinforce messages that affect girls’ ambitions, their own perceptions of their roles in society, and produce labor market engagement disparities and occupational segregation. When gender stereotypes are communicated through the design of school and classroom learning environments or through the behavior of faculty, staff, and peers in a child’s school, it goes on to have sustained impact on academic performance and choice of field of study, especially negatively affecting young women pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines.

Poverty  is one of the most important factors for determining whether a girl can access and complete her education. Studies consistently reinforce that girls who face multiple disadvantages — such as low family income, living in remote or underserved locations or who have a disability or belong to a minority ethno-linguistic group — are farthest behind in terms of access to and completion of education.

Violence  also prevents girls from accessing and completing education – often girls are forced to walk long distances to school placing them at an increased risk of violence and many experience violence while at school. Most  recent data  estimates that approximately 60 million girls are sexually assaulted on their way to or at school every year. This often has serious consequences for their mental and physical health and overall well-being while also leading to lower attendance and higher dropout rates. An estimated  246 million children experience violence in and around school every year , ending school-related gender-based violence is critical. Adolescent pregnancies can be a result of sexual violence or sexual exploitation. Girls who become pregnant often face strong stigma, and even discrimination, from their communities. The burden of stigma, compounded by unequal gender norms, can lead girls to drop out of school early and not return. 

Child marriage  is also a critical challenge. Girls who marry young are much more likely to drop out of school, complete fewer years of education than their peers who marry later. They are also more likely to have children at a young age and are exposed to higher levels of violence perpetrated by their partner.  In turn, this affects the education and health of their children, as well as their ability to earn a living. Indeed, girls with secondary schooling are up to six times more likely to marry as those children with little or no education.  According to a recent report , more than 41,000 girls under the age of 18 marry every day. Putting an end to this practice would increase women’s expected educational attainment, and with it, their potential earnings. According to the report’s estimates, ending child marriage could generate more than US$500 billion in benefits annually each year.

COVID-19  is having a negative impact on girls’ health and well-being – and many are at risk of not returning to school once they reopen. Available  research  shows that prevalence of violence against girls and women has increased during the pandemic – jeopardizing their health, safety and overall well-being. As school closures and quarantines were enforced during the 2014‐2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, women and girls experienced more sexual violence, coercion and exploitation. School closures during the Ebola outbreak were associated with an increase in teenage  pregnancies . Once schools re-opened, many “visibly pregnant girls” were banned from going back to school. With schools closing throughout the developing world, where stigma around teenage pregnancies prevails, we will probably see an increase in drop-out rates as teenage girls become pregnant or married. As girls stay at home because of school closures, their household work burdens might increase, resulting in girls spending more time helping out at home instead of studying. This might encourage parents, particularly those putting a lower value on girls' education, to keep their daughters at home even after schools reopen. Moreover,  research  shows that girls risk dropping out of school when caregivers are missing from the household because they typically have to (partly) replace the work done by the missing caregiver, who might be away due to COVID-19-related work, illness, or death. Therefore, with the current COVID-19 pandemic, we might see more girls than boys helping at home, lagging behind with studying, and dropping out of school.

The World Bank is committed to seeing every girl prosper in her life. Our projects support the education of hundreds of millions of girls and young women across the world. Working through interventions in education, health, social protection, water, infrastructure, and other sectors, we are making an even stronger commitment to support countries in ensuring that every girl receives the quality education she deserves.

Our 180 projects are impacting more than  150 million girls and young women worldwide . Hundreds of millions more have been impacted over the past few decades. 

We tackle key barriers that girls and young women face when trying to obtain an education. Guided by evidence on what works for girls’ education, our projects use multi-pronged approaches across areas including:

1. Removing barriers to schooling

• Addressing financial barriers, through scholarships, stipends, grants, conditional cash transfers
• Addressing long distances and lack of safety to and from school by building schools, providing transportation methods for girls to get to school
• Addressing a lack of information about returns to girls’ education but running community awareness campaigns engaging parents, school leaders, and local community leaders
• Working with the community to address and inform on social and cultural norms and perceptions that may prevent girls’ education

2. Promoting safe and inclusive schools 

• By constructing and rehabilitating schools to create safe and inclusive learning environments, 
• Efforts at the community- and school-levels, and programs to engage the school (including teachers, girls, and boys) in reducing gender-based violence (GBV) and ensuring available mechanisms to report GBV
• Support for hygiene facilities and menstrual hygiene management for adolescent girls

3. Improving the quality of education 

• Investing in teacher professional development, eliminating gender biases in curriculum and teaching practices, and focusing on foundational learning
• Adapting teaching and learning materials, and books to introduce gender sensitive language, pictorial aspects, and messaging

4. Developing skills and empowering girls for life and labor market success 

• Promoting girls’ empowerment, skills development programs and social programs
• Prioritizing and promoting women in STEM subjects and careers in both traditional and non-traditional sectors
• Reducing barriers and providing incentives through scholarships for women to enroll in higher education and TVET programs
• Support for childcare programs for women and girls to join the labor market

For more information on our girls’ education investment and projects, please read  Count Me In: The World Bank Education Global Practice: Improving Education Outcomes for Girls and Women , which highlights our decades-long commitment to girls’ education, and showcases how Education GP projects are creating opportunities for girls around the world to succeed in their education and beyond.

The WBG supports girls’ education through a variety of interventions.  Our focus on girls’ education and wellbeing goes beyond school attendance and learning outcomes – we strive to ensure girls have safe, joyful, and inclusive experience with education systems that set them up for success in life and motivate them to become lifelong learners. This  approach , reflected in the current Education portfolio impacting at least 150 million girls and young women, prioritizes investments in four key areas listed below. 

1. Removing barriers to girls’ schooling

• Our projects providing stipends to improve primary and secondary school completion for girls and young women in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and the Sahel benefit close to half a million girls. 
• Our  Girls Empowerment and Learning for All Project in Angola  will use a variety of financial incentives to attract adolescent girls to schools, including scholarships, and new school spaces for girls. 
• The AGILE (Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment) project in Nigeria is providing conditional cash transfers to households for sending girls to school, removing cost barriers to their education. 
• The MIQRA (Mali Improving Education Quality and Results for All Project) has a school feeding and nutrition program targeted at retention and attendance for girls in schools.

2. Promoting safe and inclusive schools for girls

• In Tanzania, the Bank is supporting the training of a counselor in every school who will provide life-skills training in girls’ and boys’ clubs – which is important because closing gender gaps is not only about interventions for girls but also for boys. 
• In Nigeria, female counselors will provide life skills training to about 340,000 girls in safe spaces. Several of our other projects also support the construction of separate sanitary toilets for girls, as well as introducing GBV-reducing and reporting mechanisms in school systems. 

3. Improving the quality of education for girls (and boys)

• In Ghana, the Accountability and Learning Outcomes Project is conducting teacher training for gender-sensitive instruction, and aims to create guides for teachers to support gender sensitivity in classrooms. 
• In Honduras, the Early Childhood Education Improvement Project, will create a revised preschool curriculum that will include content on gender equity, inclusion, and violence prevention, as well as training for teachers, including training to combat GBV.
• The Girls Empowerment and Quality Education for All Project in Sao Tome & Principe is creating girls’ clubs after school, where they are also provided with life skills training, and counseling.

4. Developing skills for life and labor market success for young women

• The Nurturing Excellence in Higher Education Project in Nepal is focusing on increasing access to tertiary education for young women from low-income groups, and additional providing scholarships for the poorest applications, alongside communication and advocacy campaigns for more female enrollment in STEM subjects. 
• The ASSET (Accelerating and Strengthening Skills for Economic Transformation) project in Bangladesh is working to increase the participation of women in skills training programs, and conducting awareness and communications campaigns to address dropout.
• In Pakistan, the  Higher Education Development  project seeks to support women enrolled in STEM programs, with an aim to move them from 2-year to more comprehensive 4-year programs. 
• The  Higher Education Project  in Moldova and the Higher Education Modernization Project in Belarus will both support and finance activities to increase enrollment of women in STEM fields. The Côte d'Ivoire  Higher Education Development Support Project  provides scholarships for women in higher education, and extra tutoring support for females pursuing STEM subjects.
• Schemes to increase participation of girls in higher education. Through the Africa Centers of Excellence (ACE) project, the Bank has supported increased enrollment of females in masters and PhD programs. The number of female students in ACE centers was 343 in 2014 and is now 3,400 in 2020; a tenfold increase. The Bank is also building the pipeline of female students interested in computer science and engineering programs and retain them.  

The WBG works closely with governments and other development organizations on girls’ education issues to identify and advance interventions that improve girls’ education outcomes and provide resources to support countries implementing such initiatives. Partnerships both within and outside of the World Bank are critical to the Education GP’s work on girls’ education. The Education GP works with other global practices in the Bank to improve girls’ education—for example, collaborating with the Water GP for access to sanitation and hygiene in schools, with Social Protection and Jobs GP for challenges related to labor market transition, or Energy GP to improve school safety. 

The World Bank collaborates actively with many donors and organizations. As a signatory to the G7 Charlevoix Commitment, the Bank has already committed an estimated $2.5 billion to girls’ education in FCV countries as of September 2021—exceeding its pledge of $2.0 billion from 2018 to 2023. 

The Education GP: 

• is collaborating with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office FCDO (UK) about targets and high-level engagement with G7 donors, to support aid and financial commitment for girls’ education; 
• is a member of the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) Girls’ EiE Reference Group, which seeks to further research and advocacy for girls’ education in emergencies; 
• a member of the UNESCO Gender Flagship Reference Group and has provided technical contributions to the UNESCO-commissioned study (December 2020-July 2021); and 
• is working closely with the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) as the implementing agency for 54 percent of the total GPE grants of $3.62 billion, that support girls’ education.
• is a member of the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI), which comprises over 20 partners representing multilateral, bilateral, civil society, and non-governmental organizations.
• collaborated with the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) to produce Economic Impacts of Child Marriage , a recent report detailing the effects of child marriage, which was supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation , the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation , and GPE.

Girls’ education in conflict is most at risk: Here’s how to reach them

Why girls’ education should remain a priority

Closing the gap: Tackling the remaining disparities in girls’ education and women’s labor market participation

Empowering adolescent girls in Africa through education

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This was the struggle for female education in the U.S.

Debate about “coeducation”—and the word itself—emerged only in the 1850s. Image:  Unsplash/Nikhita S

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• Between 1790 and 1870, girls in the US went from being illiterate to outperforming their male counterparts in schools
• From false accusations that learning algebra would harm their reproductive capabilities to gendered classes, this is the tale of women in education

With so many young women succeeding academically, education is becoming feminized, and boys are left out. Or at least, that’s the familiar complaint today, perhaps best known from Hanna Rosin’s 2010 article for The Atlantic , “ The End of Men .” The thing is, this phenomenon goes back at least 150 years , as the education historian David Tyack and political scientist Elisabeth Hansot explain in the journal Educational Researcher .

Tyack and Hansot write that there was a huge influx of girls into public elementary schools in the first half of the nineteenth century. In 1790, US men were about twice as likely as US women to be literate. But by 1870, girls were surpassing boys in public schools. At the time, the change wasn’t the subject of much national debate. Rather, local school boards and parents quietly began including girls in common schools that had previously served only boys—a process that the education reformer Horace Mann called “smuggling in the girls.”

Have you read?

How to improve education for ethnic minority women, how education helps women to the top of the career ladder, the relationship between women’s education and fertility.

Debate about “coeducation”—and the word itself—emerged only in the 1850s. Tyack and Hansot write that this was directly related to increased mixing of children of different classes and ethnic groups in urban schools. One report of that era suggested that gender-segregated schools might be useful in shielding girls (presumably middle-class, native born white ones) from the “rude assaults” of boys from inferior social classes. These complaints had little effect. However, coeducation soon stirred up different public fears. Girls began to greatly outnumber boys in high schools, and women came to “monopolize” teaching jobs, especially in cities.

This led to rising worries about women usurping men’s roles. Girls’ success in school made it hard for traditionalists to keep making their old arguments that women were intellectually incapable. Instead, they began relying on new claims that education would harm their health and reproductive capacities. For example, the physiologist Edward H. Clarke made a much-publicized argument against admitting women to Harvard based on the idea that the energy required to learn subjects like algebra would flow from other bodily systems, harming their ovaries.

Meanwhile, Tyack and Hansot write, the popular press began to warn of a “boy problem.” Pointing out that boys were more often held back a grade, and less likely to finish elementary school or continue through high school, critics claimed that the female-dominated education system was ill-suited to masculine energy. A Columbia professor wrote that it was “little short of monstrous that boys during [adolescence] receive almost all their intellectual and moral impulses from women.”

School administrators sought ways to address these complaints. But they generally saw implementing gender segregation as impractical and undesirable. Hiring more male teachers was appealing, but few men were willing to work for the low pay schools offered. Ultimately, the solution many schools settled on, in the early twentieth century, was the creation of new, gendered classes. Boys got vocational classes, while girls got home economics and secretarial courses. Separate physical education classes stressed concerns about women’s health and biology, while encouraging boys to engage in vigorous physical activity.

As we can see today, these changes failed to permanently address worries about the relative success of girls at school.

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Education as the Pathway towards Gender Equality

About the author.

Amartya Sen, often referred to as the father of the concept of ‘human development’, reminds us of a quote by H.G. Wells, where he said that “human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe”. Sen maintains that “if we continue to leave vast sections of the people of the world outside the orbit of education, we make the world not only less just, but also less secure”. To Sen, the gender aspect of education is a direct link between illiteracy and women’s security.

Not being able to read or write is a significant barrier for underprivileged women, since this can lead to their failure to make use of even the rather limited rights they may legally have (to own land or other property, or to appeal against unfair judgment and unjust treatment). There are often legal rights in rule books that are not used because the aggrieved parties cannot read those rule books. Gaps in schooling can, therefore, directly lead to insecurity by distancing the deprived from the ways and means of fighting against that deprivation. 1

For Sen, illiteracy and innumeracy are forms of insecurity in themselves, “not to be able to read or write or count or communicate is a tremendous deprivation. The extreme case of insecurity is the certainty of deprivation, and the absence of any chance of avoiding that fate”. 2 The link between education and security underlines the importance of education as akin to a basic need in the twenty-first century of human development.

GENDERED EDUCATION GAPS: SOME CRITICAL FACTS

While a moral and political argument can continue to be made for the education of girls and women, some facts speak powerfully to the issue at hand. Girls accounted for 53 per cent of the 61 million children of primary school age who were out of school in 2010. Girls accounted for 49 per cent of the 57 million children out of school in 2013. In surveys of 30 countries with more than 100,000 out-of-school children, 28 per cent of girls were out of school on average compared to 25 per cent of boys. Completion of primary school is a particular problem for girls in sub-Saharan Africa and Western Asia. 3

Surveys in 55 developing countries reveal that girls are more likely to be out of school at a lower secondary age than boys, regardless of the wealth or location of the household. Almost two thirds of the world’s 775 million illiterate adults are women. In developing regions, there are 98 women per 100 men in tertiary education. There are significant inequalities in tertiary education in general, as well as in relation to areas of study, with women being over-represented in the humanities and social sciences and significantly under-represented in engineering, science and technology.

Gender-based violence in schools undermines the right to education and presents a major challenge to achieving gender equality in education because it negatively impacts girls’ participation and their retention in school. In addition, ineffective sexual and reproductive health education inhibits adolescents’ access to information and contributes to school dropouts, especially among girls who have reached puberty.

The education of girls and women can lead to a wide range of benefits from improved maternal health, reduced infant mortality and fertility rates to increased prevention against HIV and AIDS. 4 Educated mothers are more likely to know that HIV can be transmitted by breastfeeding, and that the risk of mother-to-child transmission can be reduced by taking drugs during pregnancy.

Each extra year of a mother’s schooling reduces the probability of infant mortality by 5-10 per cent. Children of mothers with secondary education or higher are twice as likely to survive beyond age 5 compared to those whose mothers have no education. Improvements in women’s education explained half of the reduction in child deaths between 1990 and 2009. A child born to a mother who can read is 50 per cent more likely to survive past age 5. In sub-Saharan Africa, an estimated 1.8 million children’s lives could have been saved in 2008 if their mothers had at least a secondary education. In Indonesia, 68 per cent of children with mothers who have attended secondary school are immunized, compared with 19 per cent of children whose mothers have no primary schooling. Wages, agricultural income and productivity—all critical for reducing poverty— are higher where women involved in agriculture receive a better education. Each additional year of schooling beyond primary offers greater payoffs for improved opportunities, options and outcomes for girls and women.

In the varied discussions on the post-2015 education related agendas, there was strong consensus that gender equality in education remains a priority. Various inputs noted that inequalities in general, and particularly gender equality, need to be addressed simultaneously on multiple levels—economic, social, political and cultural. A response on behalf of the International Women’s Health Coalition maintained that “all girls, no matter how poor, isolated or disadvantaged, should be able to attend school regularly and without the interruption of early pregnancy, forced marriage, maternal injuries and death, and unequal domestic and childcare burdens”.

Other inputs highlighted the importance of ensuring access to post-basic and post-secondary education for girls and women. Referring to secondary education, the German Foundation for World Population noted that the “completion of secondary education has a strong correlation with girls marrying later and delaying first pregnancy.” While access to good quality education is important for girls and women, preventing gender-based violence and equality through education clearly also remains a priority.

Gender-based discrimination in education is, in effect, both a cause and a consequence of deep-rooted differences in society. Disparities, whether in terms of poverty, ethnic background, disability, or traditional attitudes about their status and role all undermine the ability of women and girls to exercise their rights. Moreover, harmful practices such as early marriage, gender-based violence, as well as discriminatory education laws and policies still prevent millions of girls from enrolling and completing their respective education. 5

Additionally, given the extensive and growing participation of women in income generating activities, education for girls and women is particularly important, especially in attempting to reverse gendered patterns of discrimination. Not only is it impossible to achieve gender equality without education, but expanding education opportunities for all can help stimulate productivity and thereby also reduce the economic vulnerability of poor households.

GENDER EQUALITY, EQUITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Equity is the strongest framing principle of a post-2015 rights-based agenda, and underlines the need to redress historical and structural inequalities in order to provide access to quality education at all levels. This heralds what was effectively one of the strongest themes that emerged in the post-2015 education consultations, i.e., a rights-based approach in which rights are indivisible. This implies that all aspects of education should be considered from a rights perspective, including structural features of education systems, methods of education, as well as the contents of the education curricula. Indeed, overcoming structural barriers to accessing good quality education is vital for realizing education rights for all.

In related post-2015 consultations, equity is affirmed as a fundamental value in education. Several inputs noted that inequality in education remains a persistent challenge. This is connected to a focus in the Millennium Development Goals on averages without an accompanying consideration of trends beneath the averages. Many contributions in the education consultation, as well as in the other thematic consultations, highlighted the lack of attention to marginalized and vulnerable groups.

Equal access to good quality education requires addressing wide-ranging and persistent inequalities in society and should include a stronger focus on how different forms of inequality intersect to produce unequal outcomes for marginalized and vulnerable groups. Post-2015 consultations suggest that overcoming inequality requires a goal that makes national governments accountable for providing minimum standards and implementing country specific plans for basic services, including education. Equity in education also implies various proactive and targeted measures to offer progressive support to disadvantaged groups.

Amartya Sen notes empirical work which has brought out very clearly how the relative respect and regard for women’s well-being is strongly influenced by their literacy and educated participation in decisions within and outside the family. Even the survival disadvantage of women compared with men in many developing countries (which leads to “such terrible phenomenon as a hundred million of ‘missing women’) seems to go down sharply, and may even get eliminated, with progress in women’s empowerment, for which literacy is a basic ingredient”.

In the summer of 2009, the International Labour Organization (ILO) issued a report entitled “Give Girls a Chance: Tackling child labour, a key to the future”, which makes a disturbing link between increasing child labour and the preference being given to boys when making decisions on education of children. The report states that in cultures in which a higher value is placed on education of male children, girls risk being taken out of school and are then likely to enter the workforce at an early age. The ILO report noted global estimates where more than 100 million girls were involved in child labour, and many were exposed to some of its worst forms.

Much of the research around women and education highlights the importance of investing in the education of girls as an effective way of tackling the gamut of poverty. This is in line with assertions made in numerous other references, which also point to a strong link between education, increased women’s (as opposed to girls’) labour force participation, the wages they earn and overall productivity, all of which ultimately yields higher benefits for communities and nations. In other words, it pays to invest in girls’ and women’s education.

GENDER SOCIALIZATION

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Western feminist stalwarts, such as Simone de Beauvoir, were elaborating the difference between biological ‘sex’ and social gender. Anne Oakley in particular, is known for coining the term gender socialization (1979), which indicates that gender is socially constructed. According to Oakley, parents are engaged in gender socialization but society holds the largest influence in constructing gender. She identified three social mechanisms of gender socialization: manipulation, canalization, and verbalization (Oakley, 1972). Oakley noted that gender is not a fixed concept but is determined by culture through the use of verbal and nonverbal signifiers and the creation of social norms and stereotypes, which identify proper and acceptable behavior. The signifiers are then perpetuated on a macro level, reinforced by the use of the media, as well as at the micro level, through individual relationships.

The concept entered mainstream lexicon on gender relations and development dynamics, and through criticism and counter criticism, ‘gender socialization’ itself became an important signifier. As a tool to highlight discriminatory practices, laws and perceptions (including stereotypes), gender socialization is often identified as the ‘root cause’ which explains various aspects of gender identities, and what underlies many gender dynamics.

In 2007, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) defined gender socialization as “[T]he process by which people learn to behave in a certain way, as dictated by societal beliefs, values, attitudes and examples. Gender socialization begins as early as when a woman becomes pregnant and people start making judgments about the value of males over females. These stereotypes are perpetuated by family members, teachers and others by having different expectations for males and females.”

There is, therefore, a clear interaction between socio-cultural values (and praxis) with gender socialization. This only partly explains why it is that in many developing societies there is a persistent prioritization of women’s ‘domestic’ roles and responsibilities over public ones. Most young girls are socialized into the ‘biological inevitability’ of their socially determined future roles as mothers. This is closely connected, in many relatively socially conservative contexts, with the need to ensure (the prerequisite of) marriage.

Most related studies maintain that women with formal education are much more likely to use reliable family planning methods, delay marriage and childbearing, and have fewer and healthier babies than women with no formal education. The World Bank estimates that one year of female schooling reduces fertility by 10 per cent, particularly where secondary schooling is undertaken.

In fact, because women with some formal education are more likely to seek medical care and be better informed about health care practices for themselves and their children, their offspring have higher survival rates and are better nourished. Not only that, but as indicated earlier, these women are less likely to undergo early pregnancy. Being better informed increases the chances of women knowing how to space their pregnancies better, how to access pre and post-natal care, including prevention of HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and family planning in general. The World Bank estimates that an additional year of schooling for 1,000 women helps prevent two maternal deaths.

The World Bank, along with UNICEF and the United Nations Population Fund highlight in several of their reports the intergenerational benefits of women’s education. An educated mother is more likely, it is maintained, to attempt to ensure educational opportunities for her children. Indeed, the World Bank specifically notes that “ in many countries each additional year of formal education completed by a mother translates into her children remaining in school for an additional one- third to one-half year”. 6

In short, girls’ education and the promotion of gender equality in education are critical to development, thus underlining the need to broadly address gender disparities in education.

The rhetorical question that needs to be raised here is whether the consistent elements of gender socialization in the region, and the confusing messages for both sexes, can only lead to entrenching processes of gender inequality. At the very least, it is safe to argue that gender socialization, combined with the continuing discrepancies in education opportunities and outcomes not only provide a negative feedback loop, but effectively contribute to entrenching patriarchal norms.

Political events and the endorsement of political leadership are often catalytic, if not necessary determinants, of policy change. In fact, most education reform programmes are often linked to political dynamics. To date, such reforms are typically launched through a political or legal act. In most cases, countries prioritize aspects such as forging a common heritage and understanding of citizenship, instruction in particular language(s), and other means of building capacities as well as popular support for party programmes. All developing country governments have, at one time or another, put special effort into including girls in the education system. While there is a continuous role for policy makers and governments, it is increasingly clear that the socio-cultural terrain is where the real battles need to be waged in a studied, deliberate and targeted fashion.

Influencing the way people think, believe and behave; i.e., culture is the single most complicated task of human development. And yet, in policy and advocacy circles globally, this particular challenge still remains largely considered as ‘soft’ and, at best, secondary in most considerations. What is maintained here is that within the current global geopolitical climate, particularly where an increasing number of young men—and now also young women—are reverting to extremes such as inflicting violence, and where this is often exacerbated by socialization processes which often enforce certain harmful practices (e.g., early marriage) and outdated forms of gender identity and roles, then culture needs to be a high priority.

Needed cultural shifts require several key conditions. One of these is the importance of bridging the activism around gender equality and doing so by involving both men and women. While this still remains anathema to many women’s rights activists, it is nevertheless necessary that men become more engaged in gender equality work, and that women realize that their rights are incumbent on the systematic partnership with men and on appreciating the specific needs and challenges that young boys and men themselves are struggling with.

Another critical determinant of cultural change is that it has to be from within. Those who have worked with human rights issues more broadly have had to learn the hard way that any change that appears to be induced ‘from outside’, even if responding to a dire need and with perfectly sound reason, is destined for failure in many cases. Sustainable change has to be owned and operated locally. This points to the importance of identifying the ‘cultural agents of change’ in any given society, which include both its men and women activists, religious leaders, traditional and community leaders (in some cases these categories converge), media figures, charismatic community mobilizers, and especially youth themselves, who are the most critical agents of change.

At the same time, it is a fallacy to think that there can be no linkages whatsoever between local ownership and external dynamics. International, especially multilateral, development partners have an important role to play in facilitating the bridge building between and among the cultural agents of change themselves on the one hand, and between them and their respective policymakers on the other. But in this day and age of technology and increasing speed of technology, international development actors, as well as transnational academic actors, are already facilitating the building of bridges between youth. Some of this is already happening through a plethora of fora (including social websites), and the impact remains difficult to gauge.

All this points to the fact that education in the traditional sense of school enrolment, drop-out rates, curricula development, and structural dynamics thereof are in multiple stages of transition. It remains to be seen how, and in what way, new forms of education, knowledge acquisition, and information sharing will significantly change patterns of gender socialization itself. It is too soon to definitely assess the shifting sands we are standing on. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to either overestimate the power of entrenched patriarchy, or to underestimate the capacity of women and men to significantly refashion their realities. At the same time, the changes in the culture of international development goal setting are already producing critical insights and inputs which are shaping the agenda of global, regional and national dynamics for upcoming decades.

The opinions expressed in this article belong to the author only and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of any institution, Board or staff member.

1 UNICEF and UNESCO: The World We Want— Making Education a Priority in the Post-2015 Development Agenda: Report of the Global Thematic Consultation on Education in the Post-2015 Development Agenda, 2013 . Available at http://www.unicef.org/education/files/ Making_education_a_Priority_in_the_Post-2015_Development_ Agenda.pdf.

3 “Making education a Priority in the Post-2015 Development Agenda: report of the Global Thematic Consultation on education in the Post-2015 Development Agenda”.

4 All the figures and data herein presented from UNESCO. 2011b. EFA Global Monitoring Report 2011. The Hidden Crisis: Armed Conflict and Education, Paris and UNESCO . World Atlas of Gender equality in education. Paris, 2012.

5 UNESCO— http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-international-...

Alger, Chadwick. “Religion as a Peace Tool”, The Global Review of Ethnopolitics , vol.1,4: 94 -109. (June 2002).

Diamond, Larry (ed.). Political Culture and Democracy in Developing Countries (Boulder and London, Lynne Rienner, 1994). Huntington, Samuel. ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’, Foreign Affairs , vol.72, No.3, Summer 1993, pp. 19 -23.

Johnson, Chalmers. Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (New York , Henry Holt and Company, 2000).

Karam, Azza. Transnational Political Islam: Religion, Ideology and Power (London, Pluto Press, 2004).

Leftwich, Adrian (ed.). Democracy and Development: Theory and Practice (London, Polity Press, 1996).

Macrae, Joanna. Aiding Recovery? The Crisis of AID in Chronic Political Emergencies (London and New York, Zed Books in Association with ODI, 2001).

Pilch, John J. “Beat His ribs While He is young” (Sir 30:12): A Window on the Mediterranean World”, Biblical Theology Bulletin: A Journal of Bible and Theology, vol. 23, 3 (1993) pp 101-113.

Tynedale, Wendy. (ed.). Visions of Development: Faith-based Initiatives (UK: Ashgate, 2006).

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)’s Arab Human Development Report (New York, 2002, 2004, and 2005).

UNESCO, “Key Messages and Data on Girls’ and Women’s education and literacy” (Paris, April 2012).

UNICEF and UNESCO, The World We Want—Making Education a Priority in the Post-2015 Development Agenda: Report of the Global Thematic Consultation on Education in the Post-2015 Development Agenda, 2013 . Available at http://www.unicef.org/education/files/Making_education_a_Priority_in_the... . United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) State of World Population Report: Reaching Common Ground—Culture, Gender and Human Rights (2008).

Williams, Brett (ed.). The Politics of Culture (Washington D.C., The Smithsonian Institution, 1991).

World Bank MENA report: The Road Not Travelled: Education Reform in the Middle East and North Africa , (Washington D.C. The World Bank, 2008).

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Editorial article, editorial: gender equality and women’s empowerment in education.

• 1 Department of Specific Didactics, Faculty of Education, University of Burgos, Burgos, Spain
• 2 Department of Educational Sciences, Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

Editorial on the Research Topic Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Education

Current scholarly literature shows that gender inequalities are still present in the process of curricular decision making and teacher practices. These inequalities are expressed through the selection of educational content, the application of methodological strategies, the selection of teaching resources, interpersonal relationships, specific task assignments, or even seating choices within the classroom. These ongoing gender-related issues drive the need for teachers to receive specific and transversal training in this area. Such trainings should be aimed at revealing gender relations as a type of power relationship for the promotion of social change.

The literature in the field of teacher training indicates that the maintenance of gender stereotypes and biases in teacher discourses and practices reinforces the sex-gender system and, consequently, inequalities. Further research is therefore still needed to study the discourses that emerged from the teaching practices around gender. Moreover, research in this field should encourage critical reflection on teacher training plans and the teaching curriculum itself.

The adoption of coeducational approaches and the promotion of education in and for gender equality entails transforming the traditional teaching curriculum to overcome the androcentric constructive bases of historical, social, and literary knowledge. Such transformation would also motivate the incorporation of “polysemic views” in the understanding and interpretation of social reality. Even today, it is common to recognize in mainstream social communication discourses, such as advertising or audio-visual artistic expressions, clear imagery of unquestionable, allegedly identarian gender cultural patterns. The overcoming or relativization of these patterns should necessarily go through the reexamination of curricular content.

The eradication of gender inequalities requires not only the integration of all the voices that have built social knowledge but also the overcoming of gender stereotypes within the education system. It is thus essential to identify the shortcomings of teachers’ training and encourage gender studies as a requisite for their curricula in order to achieve inclusive, plural, and diverse models for teaching practices.

This Research Topic includes 15 manuscripts, from nine prestigious international academic institutions (Austria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Finland, Germany, Spain, and Sweden) on important topics related to the inclusion of gender inequalities in teacher training, and the analysis of this concept in the official school curriculum, materials, and teacher practices.

The experiences and socio-cultural constructions of the concept of gender constitute the explanatory core of the research problem addressed in “ The Challenge of Women’s Inclusion for Novel Teachers. Case Study in a Teacher Educator Public University ”. This research analyzes the representations of novice teachers of History and Social Sciences on the presence and absence of women’s historical experience in their teaching practices. The research demonstrates the permanence of positivist and androcentric epistemological approaches in the teaching of History, and highlights the urgency of addressing gender inequalities as one of the most pressing social problems of our contemporaneity. In this vein, “ Classical Sociology Through the Lens of Gendered Experiences ” seeks to promote discussion on the mediating role of gendered experiences in classical sociology’s theories of the move towards modern society. This study evidences the constructive relativity of social knowledge and its consequences for sociological teaching and learning.

From the conception of a socio-constructive nature of sexism, the research “ Intersections Around Ambivalent Sexism: Internalized Homonegativity, Resistance to Heteronormativity and Other Correlates ” explores the levels of internalized sexism and homonegativity, and the resistance to heteronormativity of Spanish psychology students. Its results are consistent with those obtained in the study “ Evaluation of Sexist and Prejudiced Attitudes Toward Homosexuality in Spanish Future Teachers: Analysis of Related Variables ”, focused on the analysis of sexist and prejudiced attitudes toward homosexuality of future Spanish teachers. Both studies show the influence of factors such as political ideology, gender identity and sexual orientation on students’ beliefs and perceptions. They also point out the need to advance in the eradication of discrimination based on sex and sexual diversity in the training of future professionals, and the implementation of intersectional approaches to understand the sexist construct.

The consequences of the invisibility of female referents in education and, therefore, of models on which to build plural and empowered identities, derives from the limitations inherent in traditional gender expectations and attributions. The educational hegemony of these attributions, the basis of the study “ Nine Contradictory Observations About Girls’ and Boys’ Upbringing and Education—The Strength-Based Approach as the Way to Eliminate the Gender Gap ”, continue to limit the potential expectations and talents of girls. Through “nine contradictory observations”, this article directs its proposal towards a “strength-based approach” as a way to eradicate the gender gap. Along these lines, “ Mindfulness and Empathy: Mediating Factors and Gender Differences in a Spanish Sample ” highlights the lack of studies aimed at analyzing the potential moderating role of gender in the development of empathic skills.

The research production around the gender gap and gender-segregated differentiation seems not to have received the desired impact in educational social spaces. From this perspective, on the one hand, the article “ Differentiations in Visibility-Male Advantages and Female Disadvantages in Gender-Segregated Programmes ” starts from the differential articulation of inter- and intra-group visibility, by gender, in students, underrepresented in their programmes. On the other hand, the works “ Distributing Feedback Wisely to Empower Girls in STEM ” and “ Girls in STEM: Is It a Female Role-Model Thing? ” highlight the still distant presence of women in the development of STEM professions, a circumstance originating in the educational context and influenced, therefore, by traditional gender models and by social factors that have an impact on the construction of personal identities, as also evidenced by the work “ What Dominates the Female Class Identification? Evidence From China ”.

These constructed identities are revealed in the underestimation of the self-efficacy of secondary school students regarding their competences in STEM subjects, as shown in the work “ Parent and Teacher Depictions of Gender Gaps in Secondary Student Appraisals of Their Academic Competences ”. Consequently, the analysis of self-efficacy, expectations of results, interest in STEM areas and the intervention in the classrooms of plural female role models are proposed as necessary working spaces to redirect this trend. These results are completed with the analysis of the potential influence of gender stereotypes in biased student evaluations of teaching in “ Gender Stereotypes in Student Evaluations of Teaching ”.

From the area of Brazilian physical education, “ Gender Participation and Preference: A Multiple-Case Study on Teaching Circus at PE in Brazilians Schools ” reports on the elective influence of Primary Education teachers in the assignment of circus physical activities according to gender, extensible to the sports activities of traditional teaching. In order to advance in critical and emancipatory training proposals in gender equality in this area, “ Breaking Cultural ‘Taboos’ About the Body and Gender: Brazilian Students’ Emancipation From a Thematic Perspective of School Physical Education ” stresses the importance of teaching programs oriented to the cultural construction of the differential concept of the body. From this perspective, the work “ REFLECT—A Teacher Training Program to Promote Gender Equality in Schools ” emphasizes the hegemonic role of socializing agents in maintaining the status quo of gender stereotypes in education and in the future professional development of men and women. As a response to the permanence of the sex-gender system, and to the evidence of the influence of teachers’ attitudes and practices in the promotion of truly coeducational educational environments, this program, aimed at future teachers of Secondary Education, aims to contribute, in a sustainable way, to gender equality from the educational spaces of subjective action (such as self-efficacy), and objective action (teaching methods and knowledge).

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication.

This Research Topic was completed with the main support of the Research Group Recognized in Didactics of History and Social Sciences (DHISO) (cod. 137), directed by Prof. Dr. Delfín Ortega-Sánchez (University of Burgos, Spain). Likewise, it has also been carried out within the framework of the projects Teach and learn to interpret contemporary problems and conflicts. What do social sciences contribute to the formation of a critical global citizenship? (EDU2016-80145-P), financed by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Spanish Government), and Future Education and Democratic Hope. Rethinking Social Studies Education in changing times (PID2019-107383RB-I00), financed by the Ministry of Science, and Innovation (Spanish Government).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Keywords: gender equality, teacher training, gender representation, gender stereotypes, higher education, primary and secondary education, early childhood education

Citation: Ortega-Sánchez D, Sanz de la Cal E, Ibáñez Quintana J and Borghi B (2022) Editorial: Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Education. Front. Educ. 7:833977. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2022.833977

Received: 12 December 2021; Accepted: 10 January 2022; Published: 26 January 2022.

Edited and reviewed by:

Copyright © 2022 Ortega-Sánchez, Sanz de la Cal, Ibáñez Quintana and Borghi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Delfín Ortega-Sánchez, [email protected]

This article is part of the Research Topic

Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in Education

Today’s challenges for girls’ education

Subscribe to the center for universal education bulletin, elizabeth m. king and elizabeth m. king nonresident senior fellow - global economy and development , center for universal education rebecca winthrop rebecca winthrop director - center for universal education , senior fellow - global economy and development @rebeccawinthrop.

June 26, 2015

Educating a girl is one of the best investments her family, community, and country can make. We know that a good quality education can be life-changing for girls, boys, young women, and men, helping them develop to their full potential and putting them on a path for success in their life. We also know that educating a girl in particular can kick-start a virtuous circle of development. More educated girls, for example, marry later, have healthier children, earn more money that they invest back into their families and communities, and play more active roles in leading their communities and countries.

Over the last 25 years, there have been large gains in girls’ education, and we as a global community can congratulate ourselves for the real progress that has been made. This demonstrates that with shared goals and collective action—among governments, international organizations, civil society, media, and the private sector—we can change the educational prospects for girls around the world.

Despite this progress, our research shows that there are hotspots in the world where girls are not getting a quality education. While there certainly are places where boys are behind, we have focused on understanding how and where across the world girls are behind. The message is that many countries have work to do to improve girls’ education, whether related to the gender gap in primary or secondary enrollment or learning. There are about 80 countries where progress on girls’ education has stalled. These countries are not meeting the education Millennium Development Goals. They are stuck in an education bog—still struggling to enroll all girls and boys in primary school and close the gender gaps between boys and girls at both the primary and secondary levels.

Quality learning is important for the future lives of girls and boys, but it is also an especially important ingredient in the virtuous circle of development that comes from girls’ education.

There are an additional 30 countries that have successfully enrolled girls and boys in primary and secondary education but are trapped in low-quality learning. They are struggling to ensure that girls and boys master foundational skills such as basic literacy, numeracy, and science concepts. Quality learning is important for the future lives of girls and boys, but it is also an especially important ingredient in the virtuous circle of development that comes from girls’ education. Finally, there are another 30 countries where children are successfully enrolled and learning. However, girls are behind boys in math. In some ways, we can think of girls in these countries bumping up against an educational glass ceiling.

In this report, we review in detail the progress in girls’ education, the work that remains to be done, and strategies for success. Governments, international development agencies, and civil society organizations have supported a variety of programs that have made a difference in both large and small ways. There are valuable lessons to learn from them—but more progress is needed, especially in the poorest countries and among the disadvantaged populations in most countries. Ultimately we recommend renewed collective action for advancing girls’ education in hotspots around the world, especially in the 80 countries where progress on girls’ education has stalled. We recognize the powerful contribution that girls and women themselves can make to achieve this. Our first recommendation is to lean in with girls’ and women’s leadership by investing in two initiatives that could go to scale in a short time frame and rally support from a range of actors, especially civil society and the private sector. The first initiative aims to build strong girl and women leaders by cultivating their skills and capacities to be agents of their own lives. The second initiative aims to put girls and women at the center of a data revolution on gender, one that would fill the critical information gaps about their status, what support they need to succeed, and which interventions have been the most and the least effective. Throughout the world today, it is possible to put mobile technology to work catalyzing a major girl-generated big data initiative.

Download the full report »

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Women and girls, aa_78838_india_girl.jpg.

Today more girls than ever go to school. However, despite progress, women and girls continue to face multiple barriers based on gender and its intersections with other factors, such as age, ethnicity, poverty, and disability, in the equal enjoyment of the right to quality education. This includes barriers, at all levels, to access quality education and within education systems, institutions, and classrooms, such as, amongst others:

• harmful gender stereotypes and wrongful gender stereotyping
• child marriage and early and unintended pregnancy
• gender-based violence against women and girls
• lack of inclusive and quality learning environments and inadequate and unsafe education infrastructure, including sanitation

The international community has recognised the equal right to quality education of everyone and committed to achieving gender equality in all fields, including education, through their acceptance of international human rights law. This means that states have legal obligations to remove all discriminatory barriers, whether they exist in law or in everyday life, and to undertake positive measures to bring about equality, including in access of, within, and through education.

According to the latest available global figures (UIS/GEM Report Policy Paper 27/Fact Sheet 37, 2016: p. 1), 263 million children and youth are out of school—that’s 19% of all girls and 18% of all boys.

At the primary level 61 million children are out of school (a global out-of-school rate of 9%), 32.1 million of whom are girls (53%). Where out-of-school rates are higher, the gender gap tends to be wider. For example, in Sub-Saharan Africa 21% of children are out of school—23% of girls do not go to school compared to 19% of boys. Girls are also more likely to be completely excluded from primary education: 15 million girls will likely never enter a classroom compared to 10 million boys.

From a global perspective, as the level of education increases, girls tend to fare slightly better in terms of participation. At the lower secondary level 60 million adolescents do not go to school (an out-of-school rate of 16%), girls making up 48.5% (29.1 million) and boys just under 52% (31.1 million). Of the 142 million youth out of school (an out-of-school rate of 37%) at the upper secondary level, 69.1 million are girls (48.7%) and 72.7 million are boys (51.2%).

These statistics, however, mask disparities at the regional and country level. For example, in Western Asia, 20% of adolescent girls remain excluded from lower secondary education compared to 13% of boys. In sub-Saharan Africa, the female out-of-school rate is 36% compared to 32% for males. Young women are also more likely to be excluded from upper secondary education in the Caucasus and Central Asia, Northern Africa, Southern Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Western Asia.

Global figures also neglect the historical exclusion of girls and women from education, reflected in the statistic that two thirds of the world’s 758 million illiterate adults are women .

Despite gains in rates of girls’ enrolment in primary school there are disparities in completion rates. In sub-Saharan Africa, gender parity exists among the richest 20% who have completed primary education but among the poorest 20%, 83 girls completed primary education for every 100 boys, dropping to 73 for lower secondary and 40 for upper secondary ( UNESCO, 2016 ). At current rates, the poorest boys in sub-Saharan Africa will achieve universal primary completion in 2069, but this will take nearly 20 years longer for the poorest girls .

Many countries that demonstrate higher retention rates at the primary levels are failing to transfer these gains toward transitioning of girls to the secondary level. For example, in Tanzania, near universal enrollment for girls at the primary level has been achieved with a retention rate of 89.2%, yet girls’ transition rate to secondary level is only 32.3% ( GPE, 2013 ).

Inequalities and discrimination linked to location, poverty, and gender intersect to compound disparities in completion and transition rates. In 2013 in Nigeria, for example, over 90% of adolescents from rich households, whether urban or rural, boy or girl, were likely to complete lower secondary education whereas only 3% of poor rural young women completed lower secondary school, compared with 17% of poor rural young men ( UNESCO, 2016 ).

Participation, completion, and transition statistics, however, do not tell the whole story and certainly do not capture the ways in which girls are discriminated against within education systems and the myriad barriers that girls must overcome to complete their education, particularly regarding the quality of education they receive.

The right to education on the basis of non-discrimination and equality is a recognised right under human rights law. Provisions relating to gender equality in education can be found in both general and specific international treaties, as well as treaties concluded in most regions of the world.

At this point it may be useful to refer to our page education as a right , which explains the normative content of the right to education, that is what rights-holders are entitled to (education must be acceptable, accessible, adaptable, and available ) and states’ legal obligations to realise that content, including obligations of immediate effect, minimum core obligations, and progressive realisation, which are key to understanding the content laid out below.

To summarise, all provisions related to non-discrimination carry immediate obligations and are considered a minimum core obligation, which means states must take immediate action as a matter of priority. Provisions related to achieving substantive equality, if they are not concerned with eliminating discrimination, and achieving the right to quality education for all ( with some exceptions ) are subject to progressive realisation . This means that states have an obligation to take deliberate, concrete, and targeted steps, according to maximum available resources, to move expeditiously and effectively towards the full realisation of the right to education.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979, CEDAW) is the only legally binding treaty at the international level focusing exclusively on women’s rights. It interprets and applies the right to education in a way that considers the specific needs and circumstances of women and girls. Article 10 of CEDAW is the most comprehensive provision on women and girls' right to education in international law. It sets forth the normative content in relation to the elimination of discrimination against women and ensuring equal rights with men in the field of education, including:

• the same conditions for access to studies and diplomas at all educational levels, in both  urban and rural areas

the same quality of education

the elimination of any stereotyped concept of the roles of men and women (see below)

the same opportunities to benefit from scholarships and other study grants

the same access to programmes of continuing education, including literacy programmes, particularly those aimed at reducing the gender gap in education

the reduction of female student drop-out rates and programmes for women and girls who have left school prematurely

the same opportunity to participate in sports and physical education

access to educational information on health, including advice on family planning

A number of other CEDAW provisions are also relevant to gender equality in education.

Article 1 defines discrimination against women as:

any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field.

Article 2 sets out the legal and policy measures states should undertake to eliminate discrimination against women and therefore applies to the totality of rights found in CEDAW. This includes legal and policy measures related to the implementation of the right to education on a non-discriminatory basis.

Article 3 requires states to take all appropriate measures in the political, social, economic, and cultural fields to ensure that women can exercise and enjoy their human rights on a basis of equality with men.

Article 4 sets out the conditions for the use of temporary special measures to accelerate de facto equality between men and women.

Article 5 requires states to take appropriate measures to eliminate gender stereotyping (see below), prejudices, discriminatory cultural practices, and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women.

Article 7 is on the right to participate in public and political life. These rights are fundamental in ensuring that gender perspectives and issues are considered when laws, policies, and other measures affecting gender equality in education are designed, formulated, and implemented.

Article 11 (1) (c) provides for the right to vocational training and retraining, including apprenticeships, advanced vocational training, and recurrent training.

Article 14 (d) sets out the right to education of rural women, which includes the right to obtain all types of training and education, formal and non-formal, including that relating to functional literacy.

Lastly Article 16 sets out the rights of women with respects to marriage and family life. Article 16 (2) expressly prohibits child marriage and requires states to set a minimum age of marriage (see below). 

The UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education (1960, CADE) prohibits all forms of discrimination in education, including on the basis of sex. CADE defines discrimination in Article 1, which is more specific than CEDAW’s definition, as it applies solely to education, for example, it refers to discrimination in both access to and quality of education and to gender-segregated schools.

Article 2 (a) of CADE permits the establishment or maintenance of gender-segregated educational systems or institutions, provided they offer equivalent access to education, teaching staff with the same standard of qualifications, infrastructure and equipment of the same quality, and the opportunity to study the same or equivalent subjects. Article 2 (c) permits the establishment or maintenance of private education institutions as long as the ‘object of the institutions is not to secure the exclusion of any group’.

A number of other international human rights treaties also guarantee girls’ and women’s right to education combining general provisions on non-discrimination with specific provisions on the right to education.

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966, ICESCR) guarantees the right to education of everyone on the basis of equality and non-discrimination (Articles 13 and 14) and expressly prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex (Articles 2 (2) and 3). In its general comment on the right to education , the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights applies obligations under Articles 2 (2) and 3 to the right to education, clarifying, inter alia , that temporary measures to bring about de facto equality between the sexes in relation to education are legitimate as long as such affirmative action does not lead to the ‘maintenance of unequal or separate standards for different groups, and provided they are not continued after the objectives for which they were taken have been achieved.’ The Committee also provides that states ‘must closely monitor education–including all relevant policies, institutions, programmes, spending patterns and other practices–so as to identify and take measures to redress any de facto discrimination. Educational data should be disaggregated by the prohibited grounds of discrimination.’

Article 2 (2) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989, CRC) prohibits discrimination on the grounds of sex. When read with Articles 28 and 29 on the right to education and the aims of education, respectively, there is a clear legal obligation to ensure equality and non-discrimination in education. In addition, the aims of education, provided for under Article 29 (1), include: ‘The preparation of the child for responsible life in a free society, in the spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality of sexes , and friendship among all peoples’.

Article 6 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006, CRPD) recognises that girls with disabilities can be subject to multiple discrimination and obliges states to ‘take all appropriate measures to ensure the full development, advancement, and empowerment of women’ regarding CRPD rights, including the right to education , guaranteed under Article 24. The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in its interpretation of Article 24 in General Comment 4 provides that states must identify and remove barriers and put in place specific measures to ensure that the right to education of women and girls with disabilities is not hampered by gender and/or disability-based discrimination, stigma, or prejudice. Article 8 (1) (b) recognises that gender stereotypes can intersect with stereotypes about people with disabilities, and requires states to: ‘adopt immediate, effective and appropriate measures to combat stereotypes, prejudices and harmful practices relating to persons with disabilities, including those based on sex and age, in all areas of life’.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1996, ICCPR) has an autonomous non-discrimination clause (Article 26) which applies to ‘any field regulated and protected by public authorities.’ The Human Rights Committee has explained that: ‘when legislation is adopted by a State party, it must comply with the requirement of article 26 that its content should not be discriminatory. In other words, the application of the principle of non-discrimination contained in article 26 is not limited to those rights which are provided for in the Covenant.’ On this interpretation, under the ICCPR, there is an obligation to ensure that education laws and regulations do not discriminate against women and girls.

Women and girls face different barriers in relation to their education in different regions of the world. The right to education, although universal, takes on specific meanings when interpreted and applied in light of shared regional customs, traditions, cultures, values, etc. Regional human rights treaties, therefore, guarantee the right to education in an adapted form–one that acknowledges the barriers common to the region, as well as reflecting the universal and region-specific aims of education.

Africa is the only region that has a human rights treaty dedicated specifically to women and girls. Article 12 of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (2003) tasks States parties with eliminating all forms of discrimination against women in education, including obligations to:

eliminate gender stereotypes in textbooks, syllabuses, and the media

protect women and girls from all forms of abuse, including sexual harassment in schools and other educational institutions, and provide for sanctions against the perpetrators of such practices

provide access to counselling and rehabilitation services to women who suffer abuses and sexual harassment

integrate gender sensitisation and human rights education at all levels

Under the Protocol states must actively promote:

literacy amongst women

education and training at all levels, in all disciplines, particularly in the sciences and technology

enrolment and retention of girls in formal and non-formal education settings, including fundamental education programmes

The Protocol also commits States parties to taking action on a number of issues affecting women and girls' right to education, including to:

eliminate discrimination against women (Article 2)

ban female genital mutilation (Article 5 (b))

set the minimum age of marriage for girls at 18 (Article 6 (b))

ensure the effective participation and representation of women in decision-making (Article 9 (2))

guarantee reproductive and health rights (Article 14)

​ The right to education of girls is also comprehensively protected by a number of other African treaties.

Article 13 of the African Youth Charter (2006, AYC) sets out the right to education as applied to African youth (defined by the AYC as every person between the ages of 15-35 years), including provisions:

requiring that curricula include information on cultural practices that are harmful to the health of young women and girls (Article 13 (3) (f))

that girls and young women who become pregnant or get married have the opportunity to continue their education (Article 13 (4) (h))

on the introduction of scholarship and bursary programmes to encourage entry into post-primary school education and into higher education for outstanding youth from disadvantaged communities, especially young girls (Article 13 (4) (l))

to establish and encourage participation of all young men and young women in sport, cultural and recreational activities as part of holistic development (Article 13 (4) (m))

to promote culturally appropriate, age specific sexuality and responsible parenthood education (Article 13 (4) (n))

Article 11 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (1990) requires States parties to take special measures to ensure equal access to education for girls (Article 11 (3) (e)) and to take ‘all appropriate measures to ensure that children who become pregnant before completing their education shall have an opportunity to continue their education on the basis of their individual ability’ (Article 11 (6)).

For further information, see the African Union Commission’s and OHCHR’s Women’s Rights in Africa (2016).

In the Arab region, the Arab Charter on Human Rights (2004) guarantees equality between men and women and non-discrimination in Article 3 and the right to ‘compulsory and accessible’ primary education without discrimination of any kind in Article 41.

In Asia , the non-legally binding ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (2012) guarantees the right to education in Article 31 and non-discrimination as a general principle, but not as a human right.

In Europe , the European Convention on Human Rights (1950) guarantees the right to non-discrimination in Article 14 which read with Article 2 of the Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights (1958) on the right to education, prohibits discrimination in education on the basis of sex. In addition, Protocol 12 to the European Convention on Human Rights (2000) prohibits discrimination in the enjoyment of any legal right as set out in national laws.

The European Social Charter (revised) (1996) prohibits discrimination under Article E, provides that the state takes all necessary measures to provide for free primary and secondary education and encourage regular attendance under Article 17, and the right to vocational guidance (Article 9) and training (Article 10).

The Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (2011, Istanbul Convention) identifies education as a key area in which to take measures to eliminate gender-based violence and its causes, and requires states to take:

the necessary steps to include teaching material on issues such as equality between women and men, non‐stereotyped gender roles, mutual respect, non‐violent conflict resolution in interpersonal relationships, gender‐based violence against women and the right to personal integrity, adapted to the evolving capacity of learners, in formal curricula and at all levels of education.

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2010), which applies to EU institutions and bodies and EU member states when they are acting within the scope of EU law, guarantees the right to education (Article 14), non-discrimination (Article 21), and equality between women and men (Article 23).

In addition, the Council of Europe has a non-legally binding Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers to member states on gender mainstreaming in education (2007).  

In the inter-America region the Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 'Protocol of San Salvador' (1988) prohibits discrimination under Article 3 and the right to education under Articles 13 and 16.

Articles 34, 49, and 50 of the Charter of the Organization of American States (1948) guarantee various aspects of the right to education.

The Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence Against Women (1994, Convention of Belém do Pará) states that all women have the right to be free from violence which includes the right to freedom from all forms of discrimination and the right to be ‘educated free of stereotyped patterns of behavior and social and cultural practices based on concepts of inferiority or subordination’ (Article 6).

Lastly, the Inter-American Democratic Charter (2001) calls for the elimination of gender discrimination (Article 9) and states that ‘a quality education be available to all, including girls and women’. (Article 16).

When a state ratifies a human rights treaty which guarantees the right to education, without discrimination of any kind (see the three sections above), they are under a legal obligation to implement these provisions in their jurisdiction. This means that states cannot just ratify a treaty guaranteeing human rights without taking the necessary steps to make it a reality for its’ citizens. Such steps include administrative, legal, policy, and economic measures. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women’s General Recommendation 36 on girls’ and women’s right to education elaborates such measures and lays out precise and actionable legal and policy recommendations that would bring states into compliance with obligations flowing from Article 10 and other relevant provisions of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

States’ legal commitment to CEDAW, the Unesco Convention against Discrimination in Education (CADE), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)—the four foremost treaties guaranteeing the right to education of women and girls—is relatively widespread. As of December 2017, 189 states have ratified and acceded to CEDAW which is 96% of UN Member States, CADE has 101 States parties , ICESCR has 166 States parties , and the CRC has 196 States parties . According to our research (forthcoming), which classifies states by level of legal commitment to gender equality in education based on the treaties they have ratified, nearly half of all states (87; 44%) have the highest possible legal commitment and the majority of states cluster around the two highest levels (out of six levels) (144; 73%). However, despite this, universal domestic implementation of the right to education for all women and girls is far from being achieved, which represents a major structural barrier to the realisation of gender equality in education. Below is a map showing which states constitutionally protect the right to education of women and girls.

For more information on the legal status of the right to education of girls and women in specific countries, see:

RTE’s background paper for the Global Education Monitoring Report’s 2017 Gender Review which includes information on how legally committed each state is to achieving the right to education of women and girls free from discrimination

UNESCO’s global database on the right to education (searching by the themes ‘non-discrimination’ and ‘gender equality’)

In addition, UNGEI has produced useful guidance aimed at country and regional-level education planners to assist in developing gender-responsive Education Sector Plans.

Women and girls are rights-holders and as such are entitled to the full exercise and equal enjoyment of the right to education. However, in addition to being a fundamental right in and of itself, the right to education is a ‘multiplier right’ and is, therefore, instrumental in enabling them to benefit from and claim other key rights, such as those related to work, property, political participation, access to justice, freedom from violence and health, including sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Girls who receive more education are less likely to marry as children and to become pregnant and young mothers. According to Plan, a girl in a low income country receiving seven years of education marries four years later on average, and has fewer and healthier children. According to UNESCO, children of literate mothers are over 50% more likely to live past the age of five . There are also significant health benefits for girls and women, with considerable evidence that an increase in a mother’s education reduces the likelihood of dying in childbirth .

Ensuring quality education for all girls also increases how much they can earn and counters the continued feminisation of poverty. According to the World Bank Group (WBG), one year of secondary education for a girl can mean as much as a 25% increase in wages later in life. The benefits of this are passed on to their children as women tend to reinvest 90% of their income in their families.

Studies have consistently shown that educating girls leads to significant and wide-reaching benefits not only to women themselves and their families but also to their societies and economies. Girls’ education is proven to have a powerful impact on economic growth. According to WBG a one percentage point increase in the proportion of women with secondary education raises the average gross domestic product (GDP) by 0.3 percent . Education can improve the opportunities for women to work, which in turn can impact on poverty reduction. For example, in Latin America, when women’s participation in the labour market increased 15 percent in just one decade, the rate of poverty decreased by 30 percent (WBG). 

Girls and women face specific forms of discrimination in accessing education, within education systems, and through education. The accordions below explain the most common barriers woman and girls encounter around the world. Each of these obstacles is underpinned by harmful gender stereotypes about the role of women and men in society.

Although sex is an expressly prohibited grounds of discrimination under international human rights law, it is important to recognise that women and girls are highly heterogeneous. Gender inequality and discrimination to, in, and through education is experienced in varying forms and at all levels by women and girls, depending on their personal, local, and national context. But every woman and girl who has attended school has likely encountered some form of discrimination in education at some point in her life.

Intersectional discrimination recognises that women and girls face discrimination in different ways. The interaction between gender and other factors, such as poverty, living in rural areas, and/or characteristics, such as physical or mental impairment, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender identity often exacerbates the discrimination women and girls face regarding their right to education.

For example, according to the 2016 Global Education Monitoring Report’s 2016 Gender Review (p. 19), in 2011 in India, upper secondary completion rates of rich urban girls and boys averaged 70%. For poor rural males the average was 26% but the rate was much lower for poor rural females, suggesting it is not their gender or wealth status or where they live that affects their enjoyment of their right to education but the intersection of being female, identifying as a women or girl, coming from a low income family, and living in a rural area.

Girls and women can face discrimination in all areas and throughout all stages of their life. Eliminating discrimination in education is an important start, but women and girls will often continue to face discrimination upon leaving school. Discrimination, in all its forms, whether it happens in public or private , needs to be tackled in a comprehensive and holistic manner (cross-sectorally and through various measures that take into account how discrimination and inequality aggregate throughout a woman’s life) and at all levels in order to ensure that women and girls enjoy and benefit from their education. Common challenges include:

the gender pay gap–women, on average, earn less than men ( 59% according to the World Economic Forum )

unequal political participation and representation (according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union only 23% of parliamentarians and 5.7% of world leaders are women)

under-representation in certain fields, such as in science, technology, engineering, maths (STEM), as well as sports, in particular in leadership positions

lack of flexible working arrangements, parental leave, and maternity benefits

lack of access to healthcare and enjoyment of sexual and reproductive health and rights

exposure to gender-based violence against women, including harmful practices

paid and unpaid care work which continues to be disproportionately borne by women and girls ( ActionAid report that a woman will do an average of four years extra work compared to her male peers over her lifetime)

Gender stereotypes and gender stereotyping underpin or exacerbate many of the obstacles faced by women and girls in enjoying their right to education. Ideally, education systems should be focal points for action to combat gender stereotypes and gender stereotyping. However, in some cases, the education system, and particularly the curriculum, textbooks , and teachers, play a role in perpetuating harmful gender stereotypes, which has wide ranging effects on girls throughout their lives, from the course options and subjects they take, which influences their employment prospects, to their ability to make informed decisions about their sexual and reproductive health.

According to Cook and Cusack (2010, p. 9) a gender stereotype is a generalised view or preconception about attributes or characteristics that are or ought to be possessed by, or the roles that are or should be performed by women and men. According to a OHCHR report (2013, p. 18), a gender stereotype is harmful when it limits women’s and men’s capacity to develop their personal abilities, pursue their professional careers and make choices about their lives and life plans.

Gender stereotyping is the practice of ascribing to an individual woman or man specific attributes, characteristics, or roles by reason only of her or his membership in the social group of women or men. Gender stereotyping is considered wrongful when it results in a violation or violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Harmful gender stereotypes and wrongful gender stereotyping can affect girls before they step into a classroom and may even prevent girls from going to school. For example, stereotypical views that girls are domestic, homemakers, and caregivers may lead families to question the point of sending their daughters to school if they are to become wives and mothers, whilst the stereotype that men should be breadwinners means that boys are prioritised when it comes to education. Even when girls do go to school, some are still expected to juggle domestic responsibilities, such as cleaning, cooking and fetching water, on top of their school work.

Harmful gender stereotypes and wrongful gender stereotyping also affect girls in the school environment. For example, stereotypes about the different physical and cognitive abilities of girls and boys, leads to certain school subjects and teaching methods being gendered. Boys are considered better suited to maths, technology, the sciences, and sports whereas girls are considered better suited to the arts and humanities. This has the effect of excluding girls and boys from certain subjects (sometimes, particularly in gender-segregated schools, certain subjects are not even offered to female students) but also has a detrimental effect on girls’ further educational and employment opportunities, as girls and boys go on to study different subjects at university, where ‘male’ subjects tend to lead to more lucrative and influential careers. Gender inequality is then perpetuated through hiring practices that further disadvantage women .

International human rights law imposes specific obligations on states to eliminate harmful gender stereotypes and wrongful gender stereotyping. See our legal factsheet on gender stereotypes and the right to education for further information.

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (the Committee) defines gender-based violence against women (GBV) as ‘violence that is directed against a woman because she is a woman or that affects women disproportionately’ ( General Recommendation 19 , para. 6). Such violence takes multiple forms, including: ‘acts or omissions intended or likely to cause or result in death or physical, sexual, psychological or economic harm or suffering to women, threats of such acts, harassment, coercion and arbitrary deprivation of liberty’ ( General Recommendation 35 , para. 14).

The Committee considers GBV to be a form of discrimination, under Article 1 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979, CEDAW). The Committee’s legal interpretation of GBV as a human rights violation can be found primarily in General Recommendations 19 and 35 .

Gender-based violence against girls , for instance, rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment and assault, corporal punishment, and harmful practices such as child marriage (see above) and female genital mutilation can keep girls out of school temporarily or indefinitely. Evidence collected by the World Bank Group (2015, p. 1) shows that in Nicaragua, ‘63% of the children of abused women had to repeat a school year and dropped out of school on average four years earlier than others.’ And in Zambia, ‘girls who experienced sexual violence were found to have more difficulty concentrating on their studies, some students transferred to another school to escape harassment, and others dropped out of school because of pregnancy.’

GBV often occurs in schools, known as ‘school-related gender-based violence’ (SRGBV), which Unesco defines as: ‘acts or threats of sexual, physical or psychological violence occurring in and around schools, perpetrated as a result of gender norms and stereotypes, and enforced by unequal power dynamics’ (2016, p. 13). SRGBV can often lead to girls under-performing and/or dropping out of school altogether.

SRGBV commonly affects girls on the journey to and from school, where there is little to no supervision, for example, in Japan female students have reported being sexually assaulted on public transportation . The World Bank Group report that parental fears for the safety of girls in traveling to school impact female enrolment rates in Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East.  

SRGBV also occurs on school premises making the school environment unsafe and not conducive for learning. It can be perpetrated by both teachers and other students. A 2010 survey in the Côte d’Ivoire found that 47% of teachers reported initiating sexual relations with students. In Kenya, after a confidential helpline was set-up, over 1000 teachers were dismissed for abusing girls , mostly in poor, rural areas. Examples of SRGBV also includes bullying by fellow students . SRGBV is not confined to primary and secondary education. At universities and colleges around the world, female students are victims of physical and sexual violence including rape, bullying, and harassment. End Violence Against Women report that 1 in 7 female students in the UK experience serious physical or sexual assault during their time as a student.

SRGBV is increasingly taking place online, through digital technologies, for instance, instant messaging and social media. Gender-related forms of cyberbullying and harassment include being sent inappropriate photos and being coerced into sending sexual images.

SRGBV also includes attacks on girls for accessing education , motivated by ‘fears surrounding the potential role of education as a catalyst for social, cultural, economic and political transformation’ (OHCHR, 2015, p. 4). Prominent examples include the abduction of nearly 300 schoolgirls in April 2014 by Boko Haram in northeast Nigeria and the 2012 shooting of education activist Malala Yousafzai by members of the Taliban in Pakistan (p. 3).

International human rights law prohibits GBV in all settings, including in education. This includes acts or omissions by state actors and bodies, such as public authorities and officials, as well as by non-state actors, for example, partners, family members, teachers, etc. States have specific responsibilities under human rights law dependent on the perpetrator which are well explained in paragraphs 21-6 of CEDAW General Recommendation 35 .  

See our legal factsheet for specific provisions of international and regional law relating to gender-based violence against women . 

For further reading, see Unesco and UN Women (2016) Global guidance on school-related gender-based violence . See also Global Education Monitoring Report’s blog Teachers are central to any effective response to school-related gender-based violence ( part 1 and part 2 ).

Child marriage is any formal marriage or informal union where one or both of the parties are under 18 years of age. According to Girls Not Brides , every year 15 million underage girls get married. Globally, it is estimated that there are 720 million women alive today who were married before the age of 18—that’s 10% of the world’s population. Child marriage happens everywhere but is most prevalent in south Asia (45% of girls married by 18; 17% married by 15), sub-Saharan Africa (39%; 12%), and Latin America and the Caribbean (23%; 5%).

Child marriage violates multiple human rights , including the right to education, making it a particularly egregious practice. Children who get married are more likely to drop out of school and children who are not in school are more likely to get married. Statistics from the World Bank and International Center for Research on Women reveal that 10-30% of parents, depending on country, reported that their child dropped out of secondary school due to child marriage and/or pregnancy. Their research also indicates that for every year a girl marries before the age of 18, the likelihood she completes secondary education decreases by 0.22 years on average. In Latin America and Asia, girls who marry before the age of 12 have a reduced likelihood of 21% of completing their secondary education.

Although permissible under international law, marriages that occur after the age of 18 may also affect a girl’s education, particularly her ability to access higher education or other forms of tertiary education.

Linked to child marriage is early and unintended pregnancy. Girls Not Brides report that 90% of adolescent births in low and lower-middle income countries are to married girls. Pregnancy and motherhood often has profound impacts on girls’ education. Pregnant girls are often banned from attending school and sitting exams, and mothers often lack access to bridging programmes which allow girls to catch-up on their missed education in order to reenter mainstream education. Further, lack of free early childhood care and widely held beliefs that child rearing is the primary responsibility of the mother, means that women and girls often do not reenter education.

Pregnancy and motherhood can also occur independently from child marriage, as a result of rape, which is particularly common during conflict and other emergencies (see the case of Sierra Leone which saw an increase in teenage pregnancy during the ebola crisis due to the closure of schools). Teenage pregnancy and motherhood is also a product of a lack of information about sexual and reproductive health and a lack of access to contraception (birth control). See for example, our photo essay on the right to education of pregnant girls in Kenya . 

So what does international law say about child marriage and what obligations do states have to ensure the right to education of married and/or pregnant girls?

The Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women have stated, in a Joint Recommendation , that the minimum age for marriage should be 18 for both men and women. However, the committees take the view that a balance must be struck between recognising that child marriage is a harmful, discriminatory practice and respecting that in exceptional cases some children may be mature and capable enough to make informed decisions for his/herself regarding getting married, provided the child in question is at least 16 years old and such decisions are assessed by a judge ‘based on legitimate exceptional grounds defined by law and on the evidence of maturity, without deference to culture and tradition’ (para. 20).

This limited exception, however, does not in any way dilute states’ obligations to eliminate child marriage and early or unintended pregnancy, and to protect the human rights of child brides and mothers, including the right to education.

In order to prevent child marriage states must establish and enforce a minimum age of marriage of 18. Often, minimum legal ages for marriage are set, but the law is inconsistent (see Tanzania , for example), customary law, such as Shari’a or tribal law applies, or the law allows girls to be married in certain situations, for example, if she is pregnant or has parental permission. Under international law, exceptions such as these are prohibited.

In Africa, regional human rights law is strong and mandates that states enact legislation that sets the minimum age of marriage at 18 without exception (Article 6 (b), Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa [2003]; Article 21 (2), African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child [1990]. For further information on the interpretation of these articles, see the Joint General Comment of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child on ending child marriage ). 

The map below illustrates that very few states have set the minimum age of marriage at 18. This is particularly true of the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa, and South East Asia—all regions with high child marriage prevalence rates. It should also be pointed out that child marriage is permissible by law in a number of ‘global north’ countries, notably the US .

Under international law, states are not allowed to refuse access to school by expelling girls on the basis of marriage, pregnancy, or having given birth as this would constitute discrimination. This includes a prohibition of mandatory pregnancy testing, which has been documented in various African states , including: Tanzania, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

Further, in order to rectify the negative impacts of child marriage and early pregnancy on the right to education, for example, if a girl misses any of her primary education, states must provide fundamental education, that is education that replaces missed primary education for girls who become married or pregnant at primary school age (Article 13 (d), International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights). However, most child marriages and early pregnancies occur during secondary education. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979, CEDAW) adapts the fundamental education provision to include obligations to make efforts to keep girls in school and to organise ‘programmes for girls and women who have left school prematurely’ (Article 10 (f)). Programmes that allow girls to re-enter education are known as ‘re-entry programmes’. Successful examples of reentry programmes include Zambia and Uganda.

Given the prevalence of child marriage and pregnancy in African countries, African human rights law also makes provision for fundamental education and reentry programmes but protections are inconsistent.

The African Youth Charter (2006) requires states to: ‘Ensure, where applicable, that girls and young women who become pregnant or married before completing their education shall have the opportunity to continue their education’ (Article 13 (4) (h)).

Article 12 (2) (c) of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa is less specific and urges states to ‘promote the enrolment and retention of girls in schools and other training institutions and the organisation of programmes for women who leave school prematurely’.

Article 11 (6), African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, requires states to take ‘all appropriate measures to ensure that children who become pregnant before completing their education shall have an opportunity to continue with their education on the basis of their individual ability.’ Although this provision would seem to provide for re-entry programmes, the caveat that such opportunity is based on ‘individual ability’ falls short of international standards.

International law also seeks to empower girls to make decisions for themselves regarding unintended pregnancy and requires that sex, reproductive health, and responsible parenthood education is given to both boys and girls. See, for example, Article 10 (h), Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and Article 13 (4) (n), African Youth Charter. Below is a video explaining the importance of comprehensive sexuality education.

Lastly, international law requires states to dismantle the social, economic, cultural, and political conditions that facilitate the pervasive nature of this practice. A holistic approach is required to eliminate child marriage and pregnancy because its causes are varied and deeply entrenched. However, evidence suggests that any approach must include efforts to ensure girls enjoy and can exercise their right to education. Girls Not Brides states that girls with a secondary education are six times less likely to marry than a girl with little or no education.

For more information on preventing child marriage and early and unintended pregnancy through education, see Unesco’s Early and unintended pregnancy: Recommendations for the education sector (2017).

A bad school environment can deter girls from attending school and also negatively impact on the quality of education girls receive. The school environment refers not just to the physical infrastructure of the school premises but also the wider learning environment.

According to international human rights law, the school environment must not impair the right to education and it must also contribute to the aims of education and the right to a quality education by creating an inclusive and quality learning environment (see paras 10, 19, and 22 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child’s General Comment 1 ).

Common barriers regarding the learning environment, include:

discriminatory curricula, learning materials , and teaching methods (pedagogies) (see above sections on international human rights law and gender stereotypes)

a culture of bullying (see above section on gender-based violence against women and girls)

school regulations and sexist dress codes , including the banning of religious symbols in schools

Perhaps one of the most significant barriers to an inclusive and quality learning environment is the lack of female teachers particularly in low and middle income countries, which is itself a manifestation of the historical lack of access to education and harmful gender stereotypes about the role of women. A Unesco brief highlights (2008, p. 1-2) that increasing the number of women teachers has a positive impact on girls’ education, because:

in some conservative communities, parents will not allow their daughters to be taught by a male teacher

the presence of women in schools can impact positively on girls’ retention in school and on their achievement

at the school policy level, women teachers may act as advocates for girls, representing their perspectives and needs, and promoting more girl-friendly learning

women teachers provide new and different role models for girls, breaking down harmful gender stereotypes

In respects to the physical school environment, inadequate and unsafe infrastructure, particularly the lack of toilets, gender-segregated toilets, changing facilities, and access to safe drinking water may discourage girls from attending school. Lack of toilets and in particular gender-segregated toilets affects both girls and boys, however given the specific needs of girls, the impact disproportionately falls on girls.

Girls require toilets for menstrual hygiene purposes, this includes access to sanitary products, without which girls often miss school because of the social stigma of menstruation, they are unable to concentrate during classes, amongst other reasons. For example, the Guardian reports that girls from low income families in the UK often miss schools because they cannot afford sanitary products and do not ask for them because of the social stigma attached to menstruation .

Within the school premises, toilets, especially non-gender segregated toilets, tend to be where girls are most vulnerable to school-related gender-based violence because they are often unsupervised.

Poverty is the biggest factor determining whether a girl accesses education. According to the Global Education Monitoring report , in all regions except sub-Saharan Africa, children from rich families, whether boy or girl, will most likely attend all levels of basic education. However, girls from poor families in sub-Saharan Africa, Northern Africa and Western Asia, and Southern Asia, which are less likely than their male peers to attend school and this lack of participation increases at higher education levels (2016, p. 10).

A number of factors contribute to girls from poor families not being able to attend school, the biggest of which is the lack of free education , particularly in the formative years. This may be because governments do not have legal and policy frameworks in place to make free education a reality or they do but it is not effectively implemented, or it may not be adequately resourced, or there may be corruption which draws resources away from their intended use.

Lack of free education results in an added financial burden on families, which may come in the form of school fees (or other direct fees) or indirect fees such as for school uniforms, exam fees, security, school transportation, etc. Such fees are a direct barrier to school attendance for many girls, either because families cannot afford these costs or the costs may force families to select which of their children to send to school. In such instances, it is usually boys who are favoured because of the low social and economic value placed on the education of girls. To mitigate this, international human rights law requires states to guarantee free and compulsory primary education, progressively free education at all other levels, and targeted measures for groups at risk of dropping out (for instance, school transportation for students living in rural areas). Human rights law, however, neglects the importance of free or accessible early childhood care and education (ECCE)/pre-primary education. ECCE has positive impacts on child development and targeted ECCE interventions ‘can compensate for vulnerability and disadvantage, regardless of underlying factors such as poverty, gender, ...’ (EFA Global Education Monitoring Report 2007: Strong foundations , p. 113). For further information on states’ human rights obligations, see our page on free education .

Lack of free education is closely linked with government priorities reflected in fiscal policy. Ostensibly because of the 2008 financial crisis, there has been a trend in governments reducing spending on public services, including education, by decreasing the amount they collect through taxation. Such austerity measures have had a disproportionate impact on women and girls, particularly as it is the most marginalised in society who tend to benefit from public services.

One of the consequences of austerity and the failure of states to effectively formulate, implement, resource, and enforce free education legal and policy frameworks as per their human rights obligations is the growth of private education providers, mainly in low and middle income countries, but the phenomenon has increasingly been observed in high income countries (see for example, the UK , US , and Sweden ).

The privatisation of education poses several human rights concerns that may negatively impact girls’ education , for instance: it may encourage further divestment in public education, gradually eroding the public education system and its capacity to reach the most marginalised, particularly girls with disabilities and private providers can indirectly discriminate against girls by levying fees which have a disproportionately negative impact on girls’ participation in education, due to parental favouring of boys’ education.

International human rights law imposes obligations on states to ensure that private providers do not impair the right to education. See our page on the privatisation of education for further information.

Finally, global action to tackle poverty through sustainable development has also focused on gender inequality and education. The international community has, through the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development , recognised the importance of inclusive and quality education ( sustainable development goal 4 ) and gender equality and women’s empowerment ( sustainable development goal 5 ) in achieving sustainable development and has adopted various goals, targets, and indicators that are largely aligned with human rights law. See our page on Education 2030 for more information. See also our contribution to the Global Education Monitoring report 2017-8 Gender Review (forthcoming).

International

• Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women  (1979, Article 10; General Recommendations 19, 25, 28, 35, and 36)
• International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Right s (1966, Articles 2 and 13; General Comments 13 and 16)
• Convention on the Rights of the Child  (1989, Articles 2, 28 and 29; General Comment 1)
• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights  (1966, Articles 2, 3, 24, 25 and 26; General Comment 28)
• UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education  (1960, Articles 1-4)
• African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights  (1981, Articles 2 and 17)
• African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child  (1990, Article 11)
• Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa  (2003, Article 12)
• African Youth Charter  (2006, Article 13)
• European Convention for the Protection of Human Right and Fundamental Freedoms  (1948); Optional Protocol 1  (1952) and Optional Protocol 12  (2000) (Article 14 of the Convention, Article 2 of the First Protocol and Article 1 of the Twelfth Protocol)
• European Social Charter (revised)  (1996, Articles E, 7, 10 and 17)
• Recommendation on Gender Mainstreaming in Education  (2007)
• Charter of Fundamental Freedoms of the European Union  (2000, Articles 14 and 23)

Inter-America

• Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights, Protocol of San Salvador  (1998, Articles 13 and 16)
• Inter-American Democratic Charter  (2001, Article 16)
• Arab Charter on Human Rights  (2004, Article 41)

For more details, see International instruments - Girls and women's right to education

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• Published: 09 May 2024

Empowering women and young people in STEM

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Catherine Ngila, executive director of the African Foundation for Women and Youth in Education, Science, Technology and Innovation (AFoWYESTI), talks about her experience of academia and her hopes to promote diversity in STEM.

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Black Womxn Leaders in Education Focus of New Study

Education leaders face some common challenges such as limited resources and addressing the unique needs of students. But for Black womxn educational leaders, Organizational Leadership Professor Yvette C. Latunde says t hose issues are compounded by barriers and social injustices that only those in this specific double-bind share and experience.  

Given this, her latest research focuses on strategies Black womxn leaders in education use to thrive and the impact of direct leaders’ behaviors on their wellness. She aims to find correlations between leadership styles and wellness strategies, as well as learn about opportunities to support and protect transformative leadership and the well-being of Black education leaders.    

Latunde plans to use Kimberlé W. Crenshaw’s framework of intersectionality, which provides a critical lens to understand the nuances and multifaceted challenges faced by Black women leaders in academia. It underscores the importance of recognizing the intersections of race, gender, and other social identities in addressing inequality and creating more inclusive spaces within academic institutions.  

“In education, this population is oftentimes not used as models of leadership, and when brought into leadership positions they are brought into horrendous situations – understaffed, underfunded and without clear goals for them to work towards,” said Latunde recently, during a presentation of her upcoming research. “Why can’t we bring BIPOC (black, indigenous, and other people of color) leadership into thriving situations where they can focus on leading and success?”  

Leadership and well-being are increasingly being linked together. A leader’s leadership practices can influence the performance and well-being of those they lead, according to experts. It can also impact an organization’s culture and effectiveness.  

Latunde predicts that the wellness practices and language Black womxn leaders use for practices will not be typical. For example, in the book “Black Women’s Yoga History,” Latunde discovered that yoga was portrayed as praying while gardening or seeking moments of silence and writing, rather than the typical stretching exercises associated with it in society.   

Ultimately, she hopes institutions can use research findings to create more equitable and healthy organizations.  

Are you a Black womxn education leader interested in participating in this study? Email Professor Yvette Latunde at ylatunde@laverne.edu for more information.  

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Gender therapy review reveals devastating impacts on teens

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A top Human Rights Council-appointed expert has welcomed the decision by all health authorities in the United Kingdom to halt the routine use of puberty-blockers offered to children as part of gender transition services, amid a sharp increase more widely in the number of teenage girls seeking such treatment and concerns that it might disrupt brain development.

The development is in line with several western European countries that have reportedly reduced access to similar gender identity treatments whose benefits were found to be “remarkably weak”, according to a National Health Service (NHS) England-commissioned review, published on 10 April by consultant paediatrician Dr. Hilary Cass.

UN Special Rapporteur Reem Alsalem also welcomed the commitment by the UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to implement the implications of the Cass Review.

It “has…very clearly shown the devastating consequences that policies on gender treatments have had on human rights of children , including girls… its implications go beyond the UK,” said the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Ms. Alsalem.

UN_SPExperts

Referrals spike

The independent rights expert cited the Review’s findings that between 2009 and 2016, the number of adolescent girls referred to NHS-England’s service for gender distress – or dysphoria - increased from just 15 to 1,071.

These referrals “breached fundamental principles, such as the need to uphold the best interest of the child in all decisions that affect their lives ”, the Special Rapporteur insisted, while transgender rights groups have maintained that there are long waiting lists for treatment.

Mental anguish

Noting the “extraordinarily high number of teenage girls” impacted by anxiety and depression in recent years, Ms. Alsalem said it was crucially important that health authorities stopped “rapidly initiating permanent gender transition pathways that usually begin with puberty blockers, which could cause temporary or permanent disruption to brain maturation ”.

Instead, girls potentially seeking “gender affirming interventions” should be offered more holistic psychological support, protected by legislation that should ensure “transition does not become the only option that is acceptable to discuss with them”.

‘Detransition’ support

The same opportunity for wider therapeutic support should also be available to “detransitioners” - individuals who have discontinued gender transitioning - “most of whom are girls”, Ms. Alsalem maintained, in support of the Review’s findings.

“ Far too long, the suffering of this group of children and adults has been ignored or discounted. The report’s findings and recommendation signals that they have been heard, seen, and that their specific needs have been recognised.”

Toxic debate

According to Dr Cass’s report, “many more” young girls are being referred for gender transition treatment today, marking a distinct change from the past, when most requests for medical help came from adolescent boys.

Reiterating an earlier call for tolerance regarding discussions surrounding gender treatments amid a “toxicity of the debate” identified by the Cass Review, Special Rapporteur Alsalem stressed that researchers and academics who expressed their views should not be “silenced, threatened or intimidated” .

Special Rapporteurs are not UN staff and are independent from any government or organization. They serve in their individual capacity and receive no salary for their work.

• women and girls

I interviewed moms with 5 or more kids − here’s what I learned about the women who are quietly going against the grain

Associate Professor of Social Research and Economic Thought, Catholic University of America

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Catherine Ruth Pakaluk received funding from the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University (2019, 2020), the APGAR Foundation (2022), and the Ortner Family Foundation (2022) to undertake the research for and preparation of the book mentioned in this article.

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Commentators link America’s declining birth rate to a number of factors: a lack of support for mothers in the workplace, expensive child care , delayed marriage and a rising cost of living .

But what about women in the U.S. who, despite these obstacles, have bucked the trend and managed to have all the children they want?

I count myself in that camp: I have eight kids of my own. But I wanted to learn how other American women were able to reach their childbearing goals. So beginning in 2019, I decided to talk to some of the 5% of U.S. women who have five or more kids .

My recent book, “ Hannah’s Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth ,” is an account of what I learned.

The fertility gap

In April 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the agency that counts annual births in America, released its provisional estimate of the total babies born in 2023 .

At 1.62 expected children per woman – down from 3.8 in 1957 – the fertility rate is the lowest it’s been since the government started tracking it in the 1930s . Americans simply aren’t having enough children to replace themselves.

Studies have shown how, without enough immigration to offset the loss, this will cause the population to shrink , which in turn can lead to economic stagnation , political instability and social fragmentation . But falling birth rates go along with one more troubling pattern: the so-called “fertility-gap .”

The gap refers to the fact that women widely report having fewer children than they intended to have when they were younger. In the U.S., women say that about 2.5 kids is ideal, and that they realistically plan to have around 2.0 kids. They end up having 1.62, leaving a gap of about 0.4 to 0.9 kids.

This discrepancy exists mainly because women are getting married later than ever in history – near the age of 28 for the average American woman – which has moved back the median age of having their first child to 30 .

Despite the rosy rhetoric of influencers boosting child-free lives , this fertility gap can be a big deal – particularly for women.

Having children usually matters more to women’s happiness than to men’s , and women are generally more bothered by childlessness .

So, low birth rates aren’t just a crisis for societies and economies. They tell a deeply personal story about women failing to reach their goals for motherhood .

Bucking the trend

Motivated by these circumstances, I interviewed 55 women with five or more children who lived in all parts of the U.S., from the Pacific Northwest to the Carolinas to New England. Their homes were in a range of socioeconomic areas, including wealthy, middle class and low-income ZIP codes. Some of them worked full time, others were part-time employees, and some didn’t work at all. Their husbands held blue-collar jobs, white-collar jobs and everything in between.

What they had in common was religious faith – they belonged to Jewish, Catholic, Latter-day Saint, evangelical and mainline Protestant communities. They also tended to value having a big family above other things they could do with their time, talents and money.

One woman I spoke to, a mother of five named Leah, has no regrets about having a large family. (The names used in my book are pseudonyms in accordance with best practices and federal regulations for the protection of human subjects in academic research.)

“I think our culture really values the sort of very rigid perception of success, and has started to devalue a mother’s contribution to society,” she told me. “It’s almost, like, radical and feminist to say that my contribution is healthy, well-balanced children. Coming from a divorced family, that was a big motivation for me in choosing this life: the family unit being the priority above career and personal identity.”

The women bucking the trend weren’t necessarily wealthier and didn’t seem to face lower childbearing costs. Rather, they believed that children were blessings from God and the main purpose of their marriages. As Leah told me: “Every child brings a divine gift into the world that nobody else can bring.”

Most of them ended up having more children because they valued having a big family so highly. They didn’t plan their family sizes around other life goals – they planned other life goals around having children. And the very high accord they granted to childbearing ordered their priorities in ways that made it more likely for them to get married and have kids, even while meeting career and financial milestones.

Gains and losses

Prior to my study, it was known that women who have more children than average are more likely to go to church .

Less understood was why. Most churches today do not prohibit the use of contraception in marriage. None of the women in my sample reported having a large family because they believed family planning was wrong.

The economic theories of 1986 Nobel laureate James Buchanan helped me see the women I interviewed as rational actors like all other women – not as blind adherents to religious dogma.

According to Buchanan, people size up the gains and losses to the choices they make. Anything that adds value to one course of action tips the scale in favor of that choice. Incentives don’t have to be monetary. They can come from ideas and convictions, including religious values.

Conversely, anything that detracts value from a course of action makes it less likely. Disincentives can be monetary, like the price of a good. But the cost of missing out on other things can factor even more heavily.

Tipping the scales

Whether the women I interviewed were rich or poor, they often cited the costs of missing out when they chose to have an additional child.

They gave up or put aside hobbies, professions, alone time and financial status – not to mention eight hours of sleep each night – when they decided to have more kids.

They didn’t report not valuing those things. They felt the sting of being misunderstood, overwhelmed and limited in their work options.

What stood out in the interviews was how much worth they accorded to having another child. They got to higher numbers of kids because they had something on the other side of the scale that weighed more than the losses.

A mom named Esther summed it up: “The three big blessings that we talk about in Judaism are children, good health and financial sustenance. I don’t feel like you could ever have too much of any of those things. These are blessings. They’re God’s expression of goodness.”

Clearing the way

Drawing on these insights, my interviews suggested how mothers in my sample managed to defy the country’s declining birth rate and fertility gap.

First, because having a big family mattered so much to them, they pursued marriage deliberately. They chose colleges, churches and social settings where others prioritized marriage, increasing the chances of finding a partner in time to have kids.

Second, they sought partners who also wanted high numbers of kids. One mom, a devout Catholic, told us she fell in love with a Protestant guy in college who wanted a big family. She had known what she wanted from her life partner.

Finally, the women overcoming the fertility gap adjusted their careers to fit their childbearing goals. They didn’t try to squeeze their kids around professional milestones. As such, they tended to select careers that were more flexible, such as teaching, nursing, graphic design or running a small business out of the home.

Though not all Americans share the religious convictions that tipped the scales for the women in my study, lessons from understanding their motivations may have tremendous value for the millions of young Americans aspiring to be mothers.

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New UNESCO report on girls' and women's right to education: “Protect her rights, strengthen your laws”

Worldwide, 8% of States still explicitly restrict the right to education of pregnant and parenting girls in their legislation, according to UNESCO’s Her Atlas .

This is only one example of the many discriminatory practices that can stand in the way of girls and women fully exercising their right to participate in, complete, and benefit from quality education.

On July 12, 2013, for her 16 th birthday, Malala Yousafzai gave her first speech at the United Nations, raising a powerful voice to fight for girls’ education, after having been herself shot in the head for speaking publicly on behalf of girls and their right to learn. 

Today, while Malala turns 25, the speech she gave nine years ago sounds more real than ever. Despite important progress since the first recognition of a universal right to education in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, this right is still far from being a reality for many girls and women. Furthermore, even when it is guaranteed, it is not immune to moving backwards, as seen recently.

UNESCO has launched three years ago an online monitoring tool on girls’ and women’s right to education: Her Atlas , within the framework of ‘ Her Education, our future’ initiative. The findings are summarized in a report “ Protect her rights, strengthen your laws ” published today marking the completion of the first monitoring phase.

The new Report intends to highlight some key trends outlined by the monitoring work, and to emphasize examples of legal provisions guaranteed by States’ domestic legislation and regulation. Reaffirming the importance of solid national legal frameworks that are rights-based, gender-responsive and inclusive, the Report covers various topics such as duration of compulsory and free education, age of marriage, gender-based violence, or right to education during pregnancy, in addition to ratification of international treaties.

As Her Atlas is regularly updated in the lead up to 2030 – the deadline set for the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 4, this report will also be updated periodically, to reflect the changes in legislation over the world.

• Read the report “ Protect her rights, strengthen your laws ”
• Visit Her Atlas
• More on UNESCO’s work on the  right to education
• More on the Her Education, our future initiative

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