How Are Women Doing? The World Bank Weighs in on Gender & Development - WAPPP Seminar Series

The Men: Sudhir Shetty, Sector Manager, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management, The World Bank; and Jishnu Das, Senior Economist in the Development Research Group, The World Bank

The Talk: World Development Report: Gender Equality and Development

The Question: Are women better or worst off than they've been in previous decades?

Not all inequalities are created equal.

At least, that's what researchers at the World Bank have concluded with the release of this year's Gender Development Gap report.

Sudhir Shetty and Jishnu Das, two economists who worked on the report, were on hand at WAPPP to present the latest findings to the Women's Leadership Board at WAPPP on how women have progressed around the world in the past few decades.

The results are positive, but reveal that there's still a long way to go.

While some areas such as education have improved dramatically, researchers says, inequality stubbornly persists in areas such as maternal mortality, HIV/AIDS infection, the wage gap, and domestic violence.

The reason, say Shetty and Das, is a complex interaction between markets, households and formal institutions that must all work together in order to ensure women are supported by every aspect of society.

For instance, curbing female mortality necessitates deep political will on the part of the government to reform its institutions. "I have never been to a district hospital in India where a doctor is not drunk after 8 o'clock," says Das. "The institutions are just not working, and these are the problems that effect female mortality."

The researchers say that there are ways to tackle these challenges. To reduce female mortality, for instance, countries must concentrate on improving clean water and sanitation so that infant girls stand a better chance of survival. A look at the historical data in the US and Europe revealed telling data to the team: as access to clean water improved at the turn of the 20th century, so too did the survival of baby girls.

Some challenges like domestic abuse, however, require a far more complex approach. Political will must drive an agenda that prioritizes the well-being of women and their children; economic opportunities such as access to land, better infrastructure, and greater emphasis on child care can all contribute to a shifting climate that empowers women within their households and in society. Buy-in from men is also a critical aspect in reducing domestic violence; as Shetty says: "This report is about gender -- not just women."

*Photo Image Courtesy of World Bank
Effie-Michelle Metallidis is a guest student blogger for the Women and Public Policy Program and Master in Public Policy first-year student at Harvard Kennedy School.

Education or Marriage? In Mexico, Gender Often Decides - WAPPP Seminar Series

The Woman: Katja Kaufmann, WAPPP Fellow, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics and IGIER, Bocconi University, Italy

The Talk: Educational Choices and Subjective Expectations of Returns: Evidence on Intra-Household Decisions and Gender Differences

The Question: Why do teenagers in developing countries decide to go to scho

ol, and is your decision based on whether you're a girl or a boy?

Policymakers interested in closing the gender gap in schools, pay attention. A new paper on why students in Mexico decide to pursue higher education may hold key answers to how men and women invest in their futures - and why marriage doesn't seem to be the answer anymore.

A paper penned by Katja Kaufmann and the economist Orazio Attanasio last year studied the decision-making process of families in Mexico deciding

to send their children to high school and college. The team was curious to see if expectations of making more money by getting a better job with a higher level of education mattered more for young men or women, and if education had begun to replace marriage for females seeking a stable future.

The Results: When it comes to boys attending high school, their decision -- as well as that of their parents, matters. Boys are more likely to enter their senior year of high school if the family supports their decision. Attending college, on the other hand, depends on the boys themselves: hopes for a good job and higher pay drives many to pursue higher degree.

Girls, however, seem ruled by a maternal hand. Whether girls enter high school or college largely depends on a mother's opinion, and whether potential marriage prospects outweigh the benefits of earning an extra

degree. (The influence of fathers, meanwhile, was not directly studied. One-fourth of the participants came from mother-only families, making it hard to control for the role that paternal decision-making plays.)

Twist: While girls may forego college opportunities for marriage, they are also more likely to go to college if they live in a region where there aren't many educated men. Greater potential for an educated mate, or the safety of attaining better working opportunities as a single woman, drive many to attend college.

Take away: Ms Kaufmann was surprised by her findings; education has improved tremendously in Mexico over the past few decades, and opportunities are equally available for boys and girls. She wasn't expecting such a strong influence from mothers on their daughter's education, nor the gender imbalance when it came to making decisions. It would be interesting, she said, to run the same study in a different context, such as the United States.

For policymakers, such findings may have an impact on the design of programs aimed at increasing school enrollment by awarding cash or fellowship grants to students.

Oportunidades, for instance, a social assistance program in Mexico for the poor, is considering the possibility of issuing schooling grants directly to students. This paper could inform how such grants are awarded if it is indeed true that teenagers play a constructive, decisive role

in enrolling and attending school.

*Photos courtesy of poster.4teachers.org and http://www.oportunidades.gob.mx/Portal/

Effie-Michelle Metallidis is a guest student blogger for the Women and Public Policy Program and Master in Public Policy first-year student at Harvard Kennedy School.