Author : Shireen J. Jejeebhoy
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 9780198294948
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (949 download)
Book Synopsis Women's Education, Autonomy, and Reproductive Behaviour by : Shireen J. Jejeebhoy
Download or read book Women's Education, Autonomy, and Reproductive Behaviour written by Shireen J. Jejeebhoy and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1998-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Women's access to education has been recognized as a fundamental right. The benefits of education are manifold. Educating women results in improved productivity, income, and economic development, as well as a better quality of life, and notably a healthier and better nourished population. Atthe same time, it is clear that education empowers women, providing them with increased autonomy in every sphere of their lives. Moreover, education is important for all kinds of demographic behaviour, affecting mortality, health, fertility, and contraception. In almost every setting, regardless ofregion, culture, and level of development, education results in fewer children. Beyond these few general assertions, however, there is little consensus on such issues as how much education is required before changes in autonomy occur; whether the education/autonomy relationship exists in allcultural contexts, at all times, and at all levels of development; and which aspects of autonomy are important in the relationship between education and fertility. It is in the need to address these fundamental issues that this book took shape. The author reviews the considerable evidence about women's education and fertility in the developing world that has emerged over the last twenty years, and then passes beyond the limits of previous studies to addressthree major questions: How much education is required before women begin to experience changes in their autonomy and reproductive behaviour? How do improvements in education empower women in other areas of life, such as improving their exposure to information, decision-making, control of resources, and confidence in dealing with family and the outside world? What consequences do these changes have for reproductive behaviour? What are the critical pathways influencing the relationship of women's education to fertility? To what extent is fertility affected because education leads to changes in the duration of breast-feeding? Because it raises the age at marriage? Because it increases the practice of contraception? Andbecause it reduces women's preferences for large numbers of children? Supported by full documentation of the available survey data, this study offers unambiguous, although qualified, support for the widely held belief that fertility reduction is one consequence of improvements in women's autonomy. Support is unambiguous because in almost setting , the best educatedwomen bear fewer children than uneducated women. Support is qualified because such contextual factors as the overall level of socio-economic development and the situation of women in traditional kinship structures complicate the general assumptions about the interrelationship between education,fertility, and female autonomy. The study finally lays out the policy implications of these findings and fruitful directions.
