102030405060700
Ban-
gladeshEthiopia Egypt India Kenya China MexicoPercentage illiteracyAdult women
Adult men© INTERFOTO/AlamySource: Adapted from Data Table 12 in World Resources 2002–2004:
Decision for the Earth: Balance, Voice, and Power. Washington, D.C.:
World Resource Institute (2003)
World Resources Institute 2003b. Illiteracy percentage of men and women
in selected developing countries. A higher
percentage of women than men are illiterate.
a. Nigerian students. Note the number of boys
versus girls. Why do you think the school has many
more boys than girls? Where are all the girls?
NG MapsGlobal
Locatorthan men (Figure 7.17b). However, definite progress
has been made in recent years in increasing literacy in
both women and men and in narrowing the gender gap.
Fewer young women and men are illiterate than older
women and men within a given country.
Worldwide, some 90 million girls aren’t given the
opportunity to receive a primary (elementary school)
education. Laws, customs, and lack of education often
limit women to low-skilled, low-paying jobs. In such so-
cieties, marriage is usually the only way for a woman to
achieve social influence and economic security.
Evidence suggests that the single most important fac-
tor affecting high TFRs may be the low status of women
in many societies. An effective strategy for reducing pop-
ulation growth, then, is to improve the social and eco-
nomic status of women.
Let’s examine how marriage age and educational op-
portunities, especially for women, affect fertility. The av-
erage age at which women marry affects the TFR; in turn,
the laws and customs of a given society affect marriage
age. Women who marry are more apt to bear children
than women who don’t marry, and the earlier a woman
marries, the more children she is likely to have.The observed differences in TFRs may not be the result
of religious differences alone. Other variables, such as
ethnicity (certain religions are associated with particular
ethnic groups) and residence (certain religions are as-
sociated with urban or with rural living), complicate any
generalizations that might be made.
The Social and Economic
Status of Women
Gender inequality exists to varying degrees in most soci-
eties: Women don’t have the same rights, opportunities,
or privileges as men. Gender disparities include the lower
political, social, economic, and health status of women
compared to men. For example, more women than men
live in poverty, particularly in developing countries. In
most countries, women are not guaranteed equality in
legal rights, education, employment and earnings, or
political participation.
Because sons are more highly valued than daugh-
ters, girls are often kept at home to work rather than be-
ing sent to school (Figure 7.17a). In most developing
countries, a higher percentage of women are illiterate
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