Social Gains from Female Education: A Cross-national Study, Parts 63-194World Bank Publications, 1993 M01 1 - 49 pages This paper on the social gains from female education is part of a series, prepared by the World Bank, on the benefits of improving opportunities for women. The paper suggests that expanding women's opportunities enhances their productivity and earning potential and thus contributes to better economic performance and poverty alleviation. Education raises the productivity and earnings of both men and women. Over time female education also contributes to slower population growth and healthier families. The Bank believes that in efforts to expand women's opportunities, priority should be given to education through the secondary level, reproductive health, agriculture, private entrepreneurship, and the wage labor force. This paper is concerned with the estimation of these social gains from female education at the secondary level. The paper examines the role of female education, measured by gross enrollment rates at the secondary level, relative to, and or in combination with, some health and family planning services that influence fertility and infant mortality. It uses reduced form estimation of the total fertility rate and infant mortality rate. The paper presents cross country regressions based on data drawn from 72 developing countries. The analysis in this paper generally shows that female secondary education, family planning, and health programs all affect fertility and mortality, and the effect of female secondary education appears to be very strong. Results suggest that family planning will reduce fertility more when combined with female education, especially in countries that now have low female secondary enrollment levels. (DK). |
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1975 enrollments Africa Regional Dummy Appendix Table Asia Regional Dummy Botswana ceteris paribus Coefficient t-ratio Coefficient Cote d'Ivoire Dependent Variable developing countries education and family effect of female Elasticities of IMR enrollment level Enrollment Rate squared Enrollments 1975 family planning programs family planning services female education female enrollments female secondary education female secondary enrollments Female Secondary Gross female secondary school fertility and infant FP Services GDP per capita Gross Enrollment Rate health and family health programs indicate significance levels infant mortality interaction LAC Regional Dummy levels of female Male Secondary Gross mean values number of children P.O. Box planning service score population per physician program variable ratio of population reduce fertility reduced the IMR reduces infant deaths respect to female Scenario Secondary Enrollment Rate Secondary Gross Enrollment secondary school enrollment t-ratio Coefficient t-ratio TFR with respect total fertility rate values of t-ratios variables constant women World Bank
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Page 8 - The total fertility rate represents the number of children that would be born to a woman if she were to live to the end of her childbearing years and bear children at each age in accordance with prevailing age-specific fertility rates.
Page 2 - Total fertility rate is the number of children that hypothetically would be born to a woman if she were to live to the end of her childbearing years and bear children at each age in accordance with the prevailing age-specific fertility rates.
Page 8 - The infant mortality rate is the number of infants who die before reaching one year of age, per thousand live births in a given year. The data...
Page 1 - The elasticities of fertility and infant mortality with respect to female education substantially exceed those with respect to family planning and health programs when the elasticities are estimated with appropriate controls.
Page vii - Female education increases the value of women's time in economic activities by raising labor productivity and wages (with a consequential rise in household incomes and a reduction in poverty).
Page 39 - World Bank Staff Working Papers No. 677, Population and Development Series No. 2, 116-206.
Page 36 - In countries where the female secondary education base is low, this research suggests that the expansion of female secondary education may be the best single policy lever for achieving substantial reductions in fertility.
Page 16 - By contra*:, measures of family planning program inputs were responsible for only 4 to 8 per cent of the decline.