The Taliban have shut down the women’s affairs ministry and girls have already been barred from secondary schools. This will have wide-reaching consequences
ruled Afghanistan, they banned girls from going to school. This time they say they will allow them to be educated “within the limits of Islam”. No one knows what that means. Afghan women fear the worst. As the men with guns in Kabul ponder whether to allow their female compatriots to study, it is worth reflecting on why this matters so much.
Educating girls is also an excellent way to reduce poverty. This should be obvious—if half the population never learn much, they will never earn much. Women who finish secondary school can expect to earn twice as much as those who never enter a classroom. A degree of financial independence, in turn, gives them more bargaining power in their relationships with fathers, brothers and husbands who might seek to push them around.
Women who spend more time in school generally choose to have smaller families. This is the main reason why the global fertility rate has fallen from five children per woman in 1960 to 2.5 today. In very poor countries, uneducated women may have lots of babies, because they expect some of them to die young, and the family wants extra hands in the fields. If women are educated, however, they have fewer children so they can afford to keep them in school for longer.
The children benefit enormously: they are more likely to receive vaccinations and less likely to die before they grow up. If all women finished secondary school the number of child deaths would fall by half, and 12m fewer children would suffer from stunting caused by malnutrition. Children born of educated mothers are much more likely to get a good education themselves, and use it to snag a good job. So are their children—it is a virtuous circle.
Despite these benefits, many countries continue to neglect girls’ education. Few go as far as the Taliban, who have been known to throw acid in bookish girls’ faces. But in poor countries only about 80 girls complete lower secondary school for every 100 boys. And the pandemic has
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