The facts about keeping girls in school

Some of the benefits of keeping girls in school

The facts are undisputed – keeping girls in school benefits everyone in the short- and long-term. Girls with more education have more money in the future, have less incidence of HIV now, have fewer and healthier children and more control over when they have them. Sample some facts:

• Improved income: One extra year of education beyond the average boosts eventual wages by 10-20% with primary school returns 5-15% and secondary education 15-25%.
• A 100-country study by the World Bank shows that increasing the share of women with a secondary education by one percent boots annual per capita income growth by 0.3 percentage points. What this means is that a girl who stays the course in school makes about $2,000 more per year.
• Improved harvests: If women farmers in Kenya had the same education and inputs as men farmers, crop yields could rise 22%.
• Reducing HIV rates: A Kenyan study indicated that girls who stay in school are four times less likely to be sexually activity than those who drop out, reducing the incidence of HIV dramatically.
• Enhancing women’s choices over family planning: Doubling the proportion of women with a secondary education empowers women to better plan their families, resulting in smaller families from 5.3 to 3.9 children per woman (Kenya has one of highest birth rates globally, over 3%, placing a larger burden on young mothers).
• Reducing infant mortality: An extra year of education reduces infant mortality 5-10%
• Reduced teen pregnancy: 40% of adolescent girls in Kenya with no education are pregnant versus 26% of those who completed only primary and only 8% of those with secondary education or higher (note: 40% of deaths from botched abortions are adolescent girls (CSA 2008)

From “What Works in Girls Education: Evidence and Policies from the Developing World” (Council on Foreign Relations, 2004) Herz and Sperling.

If you prefer macro-economics, here’s perhaps the most compelling statistic, from the Nike Foundation in collaboration with the American University of Beirut.

In Kenya, 1.6 million girls are high school dropouts. If they could finish their secondary education, they would make 30% more money – and contribute $3.2 billion to the Kenyan economy every year. [note, this is 1/3 of Kenya's GDP]

Or – they could become one Kenya’s 204,000 adolescent mothers instead, and lose economy $500 million a year. A three billion upside against a half billion downside.

Learn more about the girl effect Nike’s initiative to keep girls in school, or about the Clinton Global Initiative’s commitment to girls’ education.

Read about why we think affordable sanitary pads are the most logical investment to make the largest returns with the smallest investment.