Summary
The Challenge of Women and Development Elizabeth M. King The World Bank
This paper was produced for the Copenhagen Consensus 2008 project. The final version of this paper can be found in the book, ‘Global Crises, Global Solutions: Second Edition’, edited by Bjørn Lomborg (Cambridge University Press, 2009)
copenhagen consensus 2008 women and development executive summary
Women and Development Elizabeth M King, Stephan Klasen and Maria Porter Introduction Gender issues have become increasingly prominent in the last 30 years, and gender equality is now included in the Millennium Development Goals. Here we identify and discuss the fundamental disadvantages and barriers faced by women, against an ideal of equality of rights, opportunity, resources and voice. Together these barriers shape roles at home, in society and in the economy. We do not define gender equality in terms of outcomes, since men and women may make different choices in their pursuit of wealth and happiness. A central point the paper makes is that promoting gender equity is not only an important goal in its own right, but will promote overall economic development. Investing in gender equity will therefore be an efficient investment with high economic returns for men and women in affected countries. Scope of the challenges The aspects discussed below are illustrative of the many barriers and disadvantages, rather than a comprehensive treatment.
Statutory and customary rights
National constitutions round the world affirm the principles of basic human rights, and even explicitly refer to non-discrimination by gender. However, in practice there are still multiple disadvantages: for example girls are often deterred from going to school, and cultural norms limit women's participation in political life. Sweeping changes in a country's institutional environment have the potential to reduce inequalities, and there are a number of examples of both constitutional change and specific new legislation. Similar initiatives have been made to improve women's property rights.
Human capital investments
Policy interventions aimed at achieving universal primary education have yielded remarkable results, with several countries achieving gender parity for primary enrollment and higher participation occurring at all levels. However, 35 countries – mostly in subSaharan Africa – had not met the MDG intermediate target of parity in secondary school enrollment by 2005, although they are on track to attain this by 2015. For 130 countries where the data are available for tertiary level education, female enrollment rates were higher than for males in 65 cases in 2005. Nevertheless, 60% of the 137 million illiterate youths in the world are girls. In addition, national statistics mask continuing significant gender disparities in rural areas and in poorer parts of the community.
Safe motherhood
Rapid population growth both intensifies socioeconomic and environmental problems and reduces a country's ability to tackle them. Although fertility rates in developing countries have halved since the 1950s, they remain high for the 49 least developed countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. Healthcare during pregnancy may be non1
copenhagen consensus 2008 women and development executive summary
existent and 99% of the more than 529,000 women who die annually from pregnancyrelated complications are from developing countries. High levels of teenage pregnancy increase the risks to mothers and lead to poor outcomes for families. Increasing use of modern contraceptives can control fertility and improve sexual health.
Access to markets
Evidence from a diverse range of countries suggests that an increase in the relative proportion of household resources controlled by women results in a higher share of expenditures for family welfare, particularly for children. But in all regions of the world, women have lower labor market participation rates than men, particularly in the 25-49 age range. In some countries women’s rates of participation are high, but are skewed towards either low-paying jobs, the informal sector, or those that pay women less for equivalent work. Across developing regions female farmers have less land, weaker tenure security, and poorer access to financial instruments. Female-run enterprises tend to have less capital and – with a few noteworthy exceptions – poorer access to credit.
Political participation and voice
Women are poorly represented in the political sphere in many countries. They may also have little influence on policies directly affecting their daily lives, such as the supply of maternal and child clinics or the right to collect firewood. Even though elected female politicians may be very effective, they are not always able to represent women's interests successfully in a male-dominated environment. At the same time, effective female political representation, particularly at the local level, helps promote effective public services in vital areas such as water supply, sanitation, immunization, and local infrastructure. A framework for choosing policy options to achieve gender equality
Elements of a framework
Based on this scoping of the challenges, the broad framework we use to analyze policy options is to level the playing field for men and women with respect to • legal and regulatory systems (particularly for citizenship rights, property rights and inheritance and labor force participation) • access to markets (e.g. credit and labor) and public investments and services (e.g. education and healthcare) • voice (equalizing bargaining power).
Selecting a program of policy options
We present four policy options which both address the challenges and are consistent with the policy framework. Other choices are possible, but the ones chosen form a sound basis on which others can be based. Since there are large between- and withincountry differences, we have to make some broad assumptions, but try to estimate both direct and indirect costs and short- and long-term benefits. We express benefits as increased income of DALYs (valued at $1,000 and $5,000), using 3% and 6% discount rates.
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Options for policy
Option 1 – Increase and improve girls' schooling
There remain large gender gaps in both primary and secondary education, most notably in parts of South Asia (particularly northern India and Pakistan) and sub-Saharan Africa. This is not only an equality issue, but also a barrier to the ability of countries to achieve their development goals. The benefits of improving girls' schooling are large and farreaching (including more rapid economic growth and reduced fertility and mortality). The fact that the gaps remain is largely due to cultural norms and social institutions that make girls’ schooling more costly in some contexts while also preventing parents and daughters themselves from reaping the full benefit of more education. In these circumstances, policies are needed which provide both more education opportunities and greater incentives for girls to attend school. It is important to build schools which provide a culturally appropriate learning environment for girls, particularly if they can be within easy reach. However, this in itself does not necessarily give a large increase in enrollment (particularly at primary level), and other direct and opportunity costs may be more significant. Necessary improvements to the quality of education are gender-neutral, and we do not focus on them here, although they clearly should be part of any education agenda. Removing school fees can give a large increase in enrollments, but implementing this only for girls may be politically difficult (though not impossible). Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs through which families receive funds if their children attend school have been a demonstrated success in boosting enrollments and attendance in a number of countries. We therefore propose a system of transferring such resources to mothers conditional on their school-age daughters attending school. Not only does this increase enrollment of girls, but it leaves parents a choice of options and puts money into the hands of women, where it is most likely to provide positive nutritional and health benefits for other children. Our projected estimates are based on implementing a CCT program in a typical subSaharan African or South Asian country with average per capita income of $450. The sum is paid for seven years, taking girls from the 3rd to the 9th grade of basic education. Using population trends from the UN, this would potentially benefit 70 million people in SSA and 118 million in South Asia. Benefits In addition to the general benefits of female schooling, there are specific benefits of a CCT program. Studies in Mexico show that such interventions can result in 0.7-1 additional year of schooling for girls in rural areas, but this probably underestimates the impact in much poorer countries. There are also additional benefits for nutrition and health of greater cash in the hands of women, which we estimate based on econometric evidence on the subject . Our conservative estimate indicates that each percent increase in education boosts per capita income by 0.37%. We account for intergenerational effects by assuming half that benefit for the remainder of a hundred year period. Assuming from past studies that an additional year's education reduces under-five mortality by 0.013%. Since half the cash payment is a windfall to those families who already send their
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daughters to school, these funds will help increase childhood survival rates, which we consider in one of our estimates. Costs Based on the experience in Mexico and elsewhere, the annual cost per pupil would be $32, including a 20% administrative overhead. The annual costs to cover all eligible girls in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia would be $6bn in 2005, rising to $7.3bn in real terms in 2050. Benefit/cost ratios Using both high and low DALY values, the two discount rates and high and low estimates for additional schooling, cost-benefit ratios range between 3.0 and 26.1. The highest ratios occur for the higher DALY valuation, showing the importance of the mortality component of the benefits. Design and implementation issues In rolling out such a program, the best initial focus would be on the rural poor, whose enrollment levels are lowest. Other factors could be taken into account to enhance costeffectiveness, such as targeting the payments to encourage the transition from primary to secondary education or reducing dropout rates by increasing payments at times of economic slowdown. It may also be necessary to provide funds for schools to give an incentive for them to monitor attendance and expand educational programs to meet demand.
Option 2 – Provide support for women's reproductive role
Here we focus on risks associated with fertility, under three categories: family planning programs, birthing services and emergency care. Economic development changes the incentives for family size, but fertility rates decline when women have access to family planning services and contraceptive methods. Currently, about 17% of all married women in developing countries (130 million) would prefer to avoid pregnancy but are not using any form of family planning, while 64 million are using relatively ineffective methods. In sub-Saharan African countries, the unmet need for contraception varies between 16.2 and 37.9%. There are a range of barriers, including lack of reproductive services, lack of culturally appropriate choices, lack of knowledge, lack of community or spousal support, side-effects and financial constraints. Problems which arise from malnutrition in pregnancy could be addressed by supplying nutritional supplements, but the greatest risk to mother and child occurs during childbirth when emergency care may be needed. In this case, the provision of appropriate prenatal, obstetrics and post-natal services is key. Benefits Fewer unwanted pregnancies, fewer abortions and other indirect impacts of contraception lead to significant health benefits for women and children. Meeting the needs of women for family planning programs would avert some 52 million pregnancies annually for an estimated cost of $3.9bn. It would also prevent 1.4 million infant deaths and 142,000 pregnancy-related deaths. Delaying childbearing should generally lead to 4
copenhagen consensus 2008 women and development executive summary
better educational achievement and increased work opportunities for mothers. It also reduces the incidence of low birth-weight children, and thereby improves the future health, education and labor market success of children more generally. For our analysis, we consider only the direct health benefits and therefore understate the benefit-cost ratios. Costs We consider the costs of provision of family planning and maternal health programs across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. We estimate that based on the average rate of decline in fertility rates in the developing world in the last 50 years, it would take 14 years in South Asia and 43 years in SSA to eliminate unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions,. Public communications and advocacy campaigns have been shown to be effective in increasing take-up rates of reproductive programs, so we include them in the cost of the two scenarios (a cost of $1.30 and $3.50 per new program user) to evaluate them. Benefit-cost ratios For a combination of family planning and maternal health initiatives, the benefit-cost ratio varies from 7.8 (including prenatal and delivery care plus a high promotional campaign cost) to 10.6 (routine maternity care program and low promotional cost), both using the lower DALY valuation and 3% discount rate. Program effectiveness will obviously depend on factors such as the availability of service staff and supplies; cultural, social and economic factors also play an important role.
Option 3 – Reduce women's financial vulnerability through microfinance
Microfinance institutions (MFI), such as the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, play an important role in allowing self-employed women to build successful businesses in the informal sector. MFIs may lend to individuals, groups or villages. The Microcredit Summit Campaign reports 64 million borrowers in 2006, up from just nine million in 2000. Women are often the primary focus of lending, in part because they have better repayment records than men, but in addition, women who receive credit may command greater bargaining power in the household, which translates into a larger share of the household’s limited resources being devoted to children’s human capital. Women’s access to credit also tends to increase their labor force participation. For this option, we assume that the number of loans would increase annually by 35%, which was the experience of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. The average annual number of members reached by the Grameen Bank in 1992 was 1.4 million, of whom 1.3 million were women, and 348,000 were new borrowers. We assume that each year the program would lend only to new borrowers who had not borrowed in any previous year. Since the evidence thus far points to diminishing marginal returns to credit, it would be more cost-effective to loan to new borrowers every year, particularly at this relatively small scale. We assume $285 to be the average loan to each new borrower. Benefits Based on a number of studies, particularly in Bangladesh, we assume that each dollar loaned per year will increase household expenditures by about 10% in the first year, and that benefits will continue to accrue annually by about 1% for an average 30 year lifespan 5
copenhagen consensus 2008 women and development executive summary
of the borrower. In addition, women’s improved household bargaining position would increase investment in children measured, for example, as improved height-for-age zscores. There is conflicting evidence on the effect of microfinance on schooling, and potential spillover benefits to non-participants have not been included in our estimates. Although it seems that some wealthier borrowers may benefit to a greater extent, issues remain about the ability of MFIs to support borrowers as they grow richer. As clients become wealthier, they will find they are limited by constraints other than credit, such as property rights and labor regulations, and these issues will need to be addressed as well. Costs Microfinance programs are costly to operate and typically require extensive subsidies. For the Grameen Bank, the economic cost per dollar of each loan in 1998 was estimated as $0.172; in the case of BRAC, this rose to $0.444. These differences may reflect both economies of scale and BRAC's emphasis on training. Benefit-cost ratios Bringing together the various assumptions, benefit-cost ratios vary between 0.6 and 21.6, with the average being 6.2. Design and implementation issues Design plays an important part in the success of MFIs. Repayment rates can be increased by providing repeat loans, which would means less risk-taking for the borrowers. Screening and monitoring borrowers also help to ensure higher repayment rates, and some programs even offer business training to clients. As the number of MFIs expands worldwide, some institutions are now competing with each other. While this has its benefits, there are also risks in this development. One such risk is that it can lead to borrowers becoming over-indebted when they take out loans from at least two MFIs concurrently. Credit information systems need to be developed to alleviate this problem. Savings and insurance instruments provided by MFIs can also help reduce financial constraints for the poor. Option 4 – Strengthen women's political voice through affirmative action Gender inequalities in political representation remain large, and expanding women's political voice, especially at the local level, in order to improve their ability to participate in the larger society is our fourth policy option. The first component of this option is to legislate political reservation for elected executive and legislative positions in government, particularly at regional and local levels. Focusing on the sub-national level allows novice female politicians to participate in countries that have shifted government decision-making and administration downwards, and to build experience for national roles. Some countries have mandated quotas for political representation at various levels, with some success. The second component is to launch and maintain for at least 30 years a nationwide, systematic public information or advocacy campaign in support of the above policy. It is hard for women to win elections. Even in the USA and Western Europe, female leaders are often judged more harshly than men, and in South Asia there are clear examples of 6
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women in local government who are sidelined and treated with contempt. Campaigns via either print or broadcast media as appropriate for the country can be effective, but must be a long-term commitment. The third component is to invest in leadership and management training for female politicians at the regional or local level, since many who aspire to political office will have had little opportunity for previous involvement. Benefits Political reservation not only gives voters the opportunity to assess the performance of women as political leaders, but also helps to increase the general participation of women in the political process. In general, greater representation tends to put greater emphasis on female policy priorities. Empirical evidence from an Indian reform at the panchayat (village council) level suggests that where leadership is reserved for women the supply of safe drinking water is higher by 0.95%, leading to an estimated 42,000 DALYs saved from reduced diarrheal disease. In reserved areas children between one and five have a 2% higher chance of completing the immunization program, and are 2% more likely to attend a community child care center, leading to improved cognitive development. The condition of rural roads is somewhat better, which could increase work opportunities for unskilled labor and reduce barriers to schooling. In addition, public services are improved with lower need for bribery to obtain services. Costs There are social costs to political reservation. Male politicians will have to compete for fewer political seats, so the initial level of dissatisfaction from the general population will be higher (however well female politicians perform). Also, because women, on average, have relatively less political experience and less political capital than male politicians, electing women may mean short- to medium-term productivity losses.. There will also be costs that are necessary to weaken the resistance to female politicians (long-term public information campaigns) and to increase productivity (training programs). Benefit-cost ratios We consider two scenarios. In one, we assume a 30% share of women in local political positions could be achieved in 20 years, with gender parity taking a further ten years. The second scenario assumes that it takes 30 years to reach a 30% share and 45 years to achieve parity. The benefit-cost ratios are quite sensitive to the discount rate, given the long time horizon. They range from about 2 to 18 for the "fast" scenario and from about 2 to 12 for the "slow" scenario. Design and implementation issues Based on country experiences with such policies, we highlight some design and implementation issues.
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In India, a series of legislative proposals and actions by women’s groups over a period of a decade culminated in a constitutional amendment in 1993 which introduced a 30% quota of women village heads at the panchayat level. The first one-third of panchayats which were mandated to select a woman village head were selected randomly, and would subsequently follow an election cycle with the other panchayats. A proposal to introduce quotas for women in parliament has the support of most female MPs, but it has been held back by objections from some political parties. In Uganda a one-third reservation of seats in local government for women was introduced in 1997. However, except at village level, this policy has been accommodated by expanding council numbers by one-third, not by displacing male politicians. The legitimacy of the system has been questioned, since elections are held separately for the reserved seats and there is a sense that they are outside of normal politics. Conclusions Although women face fundamental disadvantages, the four policy options we have proposed have the promise of producing real results in terms of greater gender equity and increased economic development. Some forms of the microfinance option have the lowest benefit-cost ratios, while interventions to support women's reproductive role have the highest; but our analysis suggests that all of the above interventions bring high social returns. We have left out many indirect benefits in our estimates, in part, to balance the fact that we are also unable to measure indirect costs. However, our analysis suggests that benefits are larger than costs, and especially if we consider the fact that the interconnection of the options would lead to positive synergies if they were implemented together.
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