The prosperity of a country depends in part on the productivity of its citizens. Education plays an important part in ensuring both productivity and prosperity, since the more educated the population, the higher the standard of living through higher earned wages.
What does this say about a region of the world where roughly half the population does not receive any education at all? Sub-Saharan Africa has only two out of thirty-five countries at gender parity, where boys and girls are in school and receiving an adequate amount of education. As stated in the 2013 World Population Data Sheet released by the Population Reference Bureau, Africa’s population is expected to rise from 1.1 billion to to 2.4 billion by 2050. According to Wendy Baldwin, CEO of the PRB, nearly all of that growth will be from sub-Saharan Africa, noted to be the region’s poorest.
Imagine that. A significant population growth over the next 35 years, yet nearly half that increase in the population will not have the needed education to help raise the standard of living in that area of the world.
There are many factors that prevent girls from receiving the same amount of education as boys. One of which is cultural, where girls are forced into child marriages and the household obligations forced on them due to social classification based on gender, with the governments of sub-Saharan countries unable if not unwilling to do anything about it. Another is the issue of civil infrastructure, where schools are unable to take on the additional influx of female students due to inadequate sewage, water and electrical systems currently in place. There’s also the shortage of insufficient female teachers to promote a gender-sensitive environment to consider as well.
Gender-parity in education is the key to raising the quality of living in this region. Girls who attend school are less likely to contract diseases such as HIV and AIDS and as a result are less of a drain on already strained medical reserves. Instead of being forced into child marriages or exploited through child labour, more girls with access to equal education will enter the workforce and earn a higher wage standard, which in turn translates into increase revenue for the government to pay for existing and expand on future social services. The resulting increased earning power also allow girls to grow up to become empowered women with a greater influence in social, economic and political aspects in their country. They also become better consumers which benefits industries and businesses in that region.
This in turn leads to a more stable geopolitical situation, since citizens tend to protest and riot less when their basic needs are addressed through equal access to education and the opportunities it brings.
The benefits of gender parity does not stop at the current generation either. A domino effect of equal economic opportunity will be produced for future generations as well.
The investment of time, effort, and money to ensure gender parity a wise investment in the economic and social growth and stability in sub-Saharan Africa. What is required is the removal of barriers created from cultural norms and gender prejudices that have existed in these countries for many generations.