Hopefully you're not claustrophobic. With the world population climbing up and up, it looks like personal space is going to start going down the tubes. Could the reason we might start rubbing elbows with the neighbors too much have to do with uneducated women?
Let me explain. A definite trend has been set between educated women and fewer children. Oftentimes, women with a higher education prefer to pursue a personal career rather than a trail of diapers. Only one in three women with graduate degrees don't have children, according to an article in The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.
Women get consumed by their work and don't have the time to take on the responsibilities of parenting. This helps lower the birth rate of a country. The more female grad students, the less expectant mothers. It's that simple.
In the article in the journal, titled "Bad News for Charles Murray," Charles Murray, an author who many accuse of scientific racism, gives another interesting discovery made by the U.S. Census. By a small margin, white uneducated woman in this country have more children than black uneducated women. Stereotypes are unpleasant at best, so I'll stay away from that. The point here is that race doesn't predispose some groups to have more children — the connection between race and family size just isn't there.
But a woman doesn't have to be a P.h.D. to slow the birth rate. Young girls who go to high school often learn about birth control options. This new-found awareness lets them be in control of the number of children they ultimately want to handle, and surprise, surprise, women usually want to have less children than men.
Even if a woman is in a country where birth control is not discussed in school, women who attend school have higher self-esteem and are less likely to be coerced into having a big family just because the husband may want one. Educated women are able to hold their ground and make decisions that are in their own interest.
According to the peacekeeping organization UNESCO, "Educated girls tend to marry later and have fewer, healthier and better-nourished children. Every additional year of female education reduces child mortality by five to 10 percent."
Why is it so essential that women start having fewer children? Lots of serious problems have the same root cause: too many people living on too few resources — water shortages, food shortages, pollution and wars — all relate, to some degree, to overpopulation.
But, of course, education for girls is not only good for curbing population growth. The World Bank describes in detail why it is an active participant in developing programs to educate women and, in turn, ease financial hardships and poverty. A quote from their Web site reads, "Improvement in girls' education is the cause of increase in economic growth, not the effect."
So, even with all the evidence that a girl in school is a good investment, there are still many reasons for disproportional attendance. For one, UNICEF sighted the main reason as poverty — a family that can't afford to send all their children to school (there are still costs such as materials, etc. in free schools), they will usually opt to send the boys because, traditionally, the work force is made up of men. Impoverished families also set the girls to work doing household chores. Another reason families don't send girls to school is because of violence, sexual harassment and rape in unsafe areas.
Fortunately, there are some solutions to these problems. Employing female teachers and having single-sex classes allow girls to feel more comfortable in the schoolroom. Putting schools closer to homes allows parent to not worry so much that something may happen to their kids en route. Also, some governments have begun offering small subsidies to families who are too poor to send their girls to school.
So boys, be thankful that you were privileged enough to have girls' braids to tug on in class. Hardheaded women maybe be less obedient to their all-wonderful husbands, but if you give them a chance, they can bring some sanity into the world.
Lindsay is a conservation biology senior. Contact her at: lindsay.wood@asu.edu.
