By Reneeka Chatterjee (Intern, CRY, Kolkata)
How does allowing the girls to pursue their higher studies help the economy witness a significant rise in its GDP?
Educating the girl child is a smart investment that enhances the country’s economic growth and boosts its GDP. Among the long-term benefits of educating the girl child are economic stability, improved health outcomes, and overall well-being. If girls are equipped with life skills, financial literacy, negotiation, and decision-making skills, they emerge as more resilient individuals in the long run.
Girls often drop out of school because their parents are unable to pay their school fees, and bear the costs of their uniforms, books, stationery sets, and transportation facilities. We often hear many girls, especially in rural India, say that there is no point in continuing their secondary education as they would never get the chance to pursue further studies. A significant number of girls drop out of school every year because they do not get any support from their parents, or they have to take care of their siblings at home, and engage in completing household chores.
However, every girl who stays in school and continues to pursue higher studies contributes not only to her own bright future but also to a more prosperous world. When girls are educated, they develop skills. Educated girls contribute significantly towards creating a more dynamic workforce that consists of skilled workers, leading to greater productivity and higher levels of innovation. Investing in girls’ secondary education yields innumerable social and economic benefits.
According to the World Bank, there is a strong and positive correlation between secondary education for girls and a range of positive outcomes such as increased participation of women in the formal labour sector with higher wages, improved health outcomes, delayed marriages, well-planned families with fewer children, and the ability to provide better educational and healthcare facilities to their offspring.
As it stands, the declining participation of women in the labour force in India is a concerning trend. Numerous studies and reports have pointed out that majority of the women in India tend to not work at all, or tend to work in sectors outside organised labour. They are found to stay disadvantaged because existing skilling and employment generation programmes do not favour female workers, further exacerbating gender disparities. Even for those in the workforce, women face discrimination on the basis of gender and ability. They have to often deal with payment disparities, longer working hours, and lower-income jobs for women.
Resultantly, the number of women working in high-skill professions such as engineering and medicine in India is found to be comparatively low. Most women still prefer to work in “traditional” professions such as teaching, or find jobs in the unorganised labour sector. Higher education for girls forms the bedrock for empowered women in the workforce, who have the confidence to stand up for their rights and fight for gender equality. Learned women contribute to a progressive and healthy society.
According to the World Bank, one year of secondary education for girls can increase their wages by up to 25% later in life. The USAID revealed that if 10% more adolescent girls attend school, a country’s GDP can increase by an average of 3%. The World Economic Forum in 2020 revealed that investing in girls’ education could return billions in GDP. This implies that investing in girls’ education yields economic benefits galore for developing countries such as India. The World Economic Forum also revealed that by 2030, if all girls complete their secondary education, the GDP of several developing economies across the globe could rise by an average of 10% over the next decade.
India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and has a golden opportunity to boost its GDP by promoting and encouraging girl’s education and gender equality. According to an insightful report published by McKinsey & Company in 2018, India’s GDP can stand to gain nearly 770 billion US dollars by 2025 if the universalisation of secondary education for girls becomes a reality in India. This implies that India has the potential to experience an addition of 770 billion USD to its GDP by 2025.
The National Education Policy 2020 in India has extended universal, free, and quality education up to the age of 18, aligning with the promises of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG Goal-4) for equitable education by 2030. Educating girls and promoting gender equality will remove financial barriers that keep girls out of school. Simultaneously, fixing inequality in education will prevent child marriage, improve access to reproductive health services for girls, and strengthen skilling and employment opportunities for adolescent girls and young women.
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