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How women are automatically downgraded in the industry or in the real world, many women have experienced men with higher salaries then themselves. In the article Dundic explains that 48.6% of women have lower activity rates expectations due to marketing being based on gender neutral roles that affect the behavior of segregation repeating.

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Maja Đundić Gender Equality Portfolio Manager

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Gender Differences: How Society Shapes Our Gender Roles from the Earliest Age

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From the moment we are born, aside from biological differences based on sex, there are virtually no other disparities. However, from the earliest age, society begins to create differences between boys and girls and molds us into “suitable” roles, laying the foundations for our opportunities in adulthood.

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Gender Difference: The real world treatment women have to experience throughout there daily life's. The lower rates, lower incomes & salaries they receive less due to there gender.

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Throughout time women's society has overcame many achievements and changes, the duration of this progress has been made but throughout this process it has not came without challenge's. For what you may ask? Just for women to receive equality, but to this day women are still fighting for their rights and same gender treatment.

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The Evolving Role of Modern Women: Challenges, Achievements, and Misconceptions

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A Comprehensive Analysis of Modern Gender Dynamics and Societal Expectations

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Roles: Throughout centuries the roles of women have changed countless amounts, in order to get to this point women had to fight for their rights. To this day women's rights are still not equally fair.

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This topic matters because it's important to see information of how throughout different generations women have grown, changed, and devolved within time.

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Material: Development of women's changes.

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Specifically women & girls get targeted as trafficking victims, many laws have been made to stop these incidents to prevent them from happening again but due to the impact on our community because we keep letting these issues happen again and again it's going to lead our future know that it is okay to repeat these acts again when it is not, going into a more brief view we should connect to the values that rape should be against the law and it will make a world wide perceptive that this topic should be taken more seriously.

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Form of trafficking that targets women and girls - in particular, but not limited to, those in the most disadvantaged positions. See also: victim; survivor

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I have decided to select my first topic to research on trafficking in women & girls, I selected this topic due to the exceeded amount of reports of females being trafficked my question is why has there not been a change on what we can do to prevent these things from them to keep on happening? This information must been investigated because this is an issue that should not be repeated.

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Trafficking in Women & Girls: The increasing number of women and girls that get trafficked is very high there have been issues addressed but still there has not been a very serious law made there must be a change on this situation.

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The increased Education within Women has had a huge increase over the years, a larger expansion has been promoted throughout time "For decades, female education has been promoted as a means of changing demographic outcomes. Over this period, the expansion of access to education for women and the push to achieve education for all were not only promoted as desirable ends, but also in the hopes that greater opportunities for women." With this change it has made great career changes, and women to feel stronger then ever.

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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2016 Sep 1.

Abstract

The expansion of female education has been promoted as a way to postpone the age of first birth. In sub-Saharan Africa, the first cohorts to benefit from policies that expanded access to education are now reaching adulthood and beginning childbearing. I investigate whether the expansion of education in Malawi, which implemented a free primary education policy in 1994 and subsequently expanded secondary schooling, has led to a later age at first birth and whether the education gradient in fertility timing has remained stable over time. Despite increases in female grade attainment over the past twenty years, the age at first birth has not changed. Using instrumental variables analysis, I find a significant negative association between grade attainment and age at first birth, suggesting that the deterioration of school quality and shift in the age pattern of enrollment that accompanied educational expansion may have compromised the transformative potential of education.

Introduction

For decades, female education has been promoted as a means of changing demographic outcomes. Over this period, the expansion of access to education for women and the push to achieve "education for all" were not only promoted as desirable ends, but also in the hopes that greater opportunities for women would lead to later fertility at lower rates ( UNESCO 1990; McIntosh and Finkle 1995). These policy shifts coincided with an emerging international emphasis on interventions that target adolescent girls in order to achieve development goals ( Moeller 2013; Chisamya et al. 2012; Tembon and Fort 2008; Klugman et al. 2014; World Bank 2006; Levine et al. 2008; Mensch, Bruce, and Greene 1998; World Bank 2004a; Herz and Sperling 2004; Lloyd 2009). A central element of these policy discussions is the assertion that increased educational attainment will lead to later ages at first birth. In contrast to total fertility rates, which may not immediately respond to the expansion of education, age at first birth is expected to become older for the first generation of girls to benefit from improved access to schools ( Caldwell 1982; Cleland 2002).

In sub-Saharan Africa, the first cohorts to benefit from policies that expanded access to education are now reaching adulthood and beginning childbearing. This provides the first opportunity to examine whether the demographic promise of these policies has come to fruition. Has the shift in the educational composition of young women led to a later age at first birth? Has the educational gradient in the timing of first births remained constant over time? This article uses the experience of Malawi as a case study to examine these questions. In 1994, Malawi became the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to implement a free primary education (FPE) policy after the international declaration of "education for all". Four years later the government expanded the secondary school system, creating a second tier of schools by turning existing distance education centers into lower-cost Community Day Secondary Schools. Four Demographic and Health Surveys were collected in Malawi between 1992 and 2010, creating the opportunity to examine how the transition to first birth has varied across cohorts of young women who had different degrees of exposure to these education policies. If the demographic promise of expanded female education has come to fruition, then the median age at first birth would be expected to shift to older ages as the educational composition of young women shifted to higher levels of schooling attainment. Instead, I find that the age at first birth in Malawi has remained relatively constant over this period, despite dramatic increases in female schooling attainment. This pattern is largely driven by a declining age at first birth across cohorts of women who attend secondary school. I explore the sources of this pattern, with a focus on changes in the selectivity of school enrollment, age patterns of enrollment, school quality, and contextual factors, and discuss the conditions that may be necessary in order for expanded female education to delay the onset of childbearing.

Schooling and the Age at First Birth

The demographic promise of expanded female education emerged from evidence of the education gradient across a range of demographic outcomes. In the case of fertility, demographers found that women with higher levels of educational attainment, especially secondary schooling, consistently had later ages at first birth than less educated women or women who had never been to school ( Ainsworth, Beegle, and Nyamete 1996; Jejeebhoy 1995; Lloyd 2005). Less than a handful of studies, however, have examined whether education gradients in the timing of first birth have changed over time. One study pooled Demographic and Health Survey data from 52 countries to examine how the education gradient in the prevalence of births before age 18 differed for 20-24 and 40-44 year olds ( Lloyd 2005). This report found that education gradients in early childbearing were stable across all world regions, and that, within sub-Saharan Africa, the negative association between primary school completion and early childbearing may even have strengthened over these cohorts. Gupta and Mahy (2003) examined five African countries and also concluded that education gradients in the age at first birth were stable over time. Other studies have used education policy changes, such as new classroom construction or changes in the years of compulsory schooling, to instrument the relationship between education and age at first birth ( De Paoli 2011; Ferré 2009; Kirdar, Dayioglu, and Koc 2009; Angeles, Guilkey, and Mroz 2005). Although these studies consistently found a positive education gradient after adjusting for the potential endogeneity of schooling attainment and the timing of first birth, the consequences of these policies may not be comparable to the consequences of free primary education policies and other education changes that have come to categorize African education policies in the last 15-20 years.

Although some of the literature has emphasized the positive demographic externalities of increased access to schooling at the community level ( Caldwell 1980; Axinn and Barber 2001; Kravdal 2002), the effect of a woman's own educational attainment on her fertility has been theorized to be the product of a number of ideational and instrumental factors. Schooling may serve as a conduit for exposure to different values and ways of thinking about the world ( LeVine, LeVine, and Schnell 2001; Thornton 2005), and the skills and credentials gained through schooling may also create new opportunities for labor force participation, greater decision making autonomy, and shifts in time preferences that increase women's status and the opportunity cost of women's childbearing ( Caldwell 1980; Caldwell, Orubuloye, and Caldwell 1992; Diamond, Newby, and Varle 1999). Age at first birth may be particularly sensitive to the potential of schools to empower women, as the timing of childbearing may depend, among other things, on the perception of alternatives to early childbearing, greater acceptance of non-traditional gender roles, and the ability to exercise decision-making power about sexual relationships and contraception early in the life course. Finally, even if schooling fails to change attitudes, expectations, and behaviors among young women, it may still be associated with a later age at first birth to the extent that girls enrolled in school at older ages are less likely to be sexually active or at risk of marriage ( Bledsoe and Cohen 1993).

However, schooling may not always create the conditions to postpone fertility. The knowledge and experiences gained at school may increase the efficiency with which women carry out their roles and responsibilities, such as improving child survival, while failing to transform the options that women perceive to be available ( Kabeer 2005). The information, knowledge, and new ideas encountered at school may not be sufficient to change women's status and demographic behavior if pedagogical practices and curricula do not challenge gender hierarchies or encourage young women to participate and exercise critical thinking in the classroom ( Stromquist 2003; Aikman, Unterhalter, and Challender 2005). Schools may also expose young women to the risk of gender-based violence. Students may be sexually harassed on the way to and from school, and subject to abuse from male classmates and teachers ( Dunne, Humphreys, and Leach 2006). Young women may also be pressured to begin sexual relationships in exchange for financial support to pay school fees or other school-related expenses ( Luke 2003; Gerver 2013; Vavrus 2003), putting those students at risk for early pregnancy.

Ironically, international efforts to expand school participation and attainment may have compromised the potential of schools to empower young women. An emerging body of evidence suggests that the rapid expansion of primary school enrollments in sub-Saharan Africa, most often stimulated by free primary education policies introduced over the past twenty years, has been at the expense of school quality ( Pritchett 2013; World Bank and UNICEF 2009). Increasing student-teacher ratios, reliance on unqualified teachers, and insufficient budgets for new school materials may limit the feasibility of executing the types of gender sensitive classroom practices that foster women's empowerment and lead to later childbearing. To the extent that improved outcomes for women depend on literacy and other skills gained in school, low school quality will also compromise the instrumental effects of schooling. Nonetheless, the expansion of education has led to the enrollment of large numbers of students who would previously have limited exposure to schooling. Some scholars argue that this shift in the composition of students is driving declines in average academic performance, as the newly enrolled have greater barriers to learning such as less family support for education, uneducated parents, greater labor demands, and worse health and nutrition than past cohorts of students ( Filmer and Schady 2009). Even as average test scores in sub-Saharan Africa have declined over time, the absolute number of students who have gained skills has increased ( Taylor and Spaull 2015), supporting the counter-narrative that observed achievement patterns are driven more by the declining selectivity of enrollment than by declining school quality. It is possible that more young women are attending school, completing more grades, and gaining greater literacy relative to past cohorts at the same time that schools are becoming less effective at fostering autonomy and challenging traditional gender norms.

Furthermore, educational attainment has expanded faster than modern wage employment in most African countries, such that the labor market will not be able to absorb larger cohorts of educated youth; the most recent data suggest that the majority of African young adults who ever attended secondary school will be unable to find wage work ( Filmer and Fox 2014). A study of secondary school leavers in Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe found that wage employment for educated youth declined over the 1990s and early 2000s, with a corresponding increase in the proportion of educated youth who were either underemployed or unemployed and seeking work ( Al-Samarrai and Bennell 2007). Young women have substantially lower rates of wage work than men, with their opportunities often limited by the persistence of gender segregated labor markets ( Filmer and Fox 2014). If young women are unable to find meaningful employment or do not anticipate finding productive work after they leave school, then they may perceive few benefits to postponing childbearing.

Finally, the HIV epidemic may have changed patterns of early childbearing. In particular, young women who are concerned about their chances of becoming infected with HIV/AIDS may give birth at earlier ages, which may make it difficult to disentangle the effect of the education policies from that of the HIV epidemic. Ueyama and Yamauchi (2009) provide evidence that the age at first marriage in Malawi became younger as the level of adult mortality increased over the course of the HIV epidemic, suggesting that young women began forming families at earlier ages in the hopes of marrying an HIV-negative partner. Although the authors did not look at the timing of first birth, the relatively short marriage to first birth interval in Malawi suggests that the age at first birth may also have responded to local mortality levels. More recent survey data, however, did not find an association between HIV risk perceptions and the transition to marriage ( Grant and Soler-Hampejsek 2014). Concerns about HIV may also lead some women to adopt a "now or never" attitude, intending to accelerate childbearing in order to start a family before the onset of illness ( Hayford, Agadjanian, and Luz 2012). A recent study from Malawi found that young women with greater uncertainty about their current or future risk of HIV infection report a shorter desired waiting time until their next birth ( Trinitapoli and Yeatman 2011), although the authors also found that current school enrollment was strongly associated with a longer waiting time until next birth.

Education Change in Malawi

The simultaneous expansion of female schooling and possible deterioration of school quality in Malawi raise important questions about whether the school experiences of the most recent cohorts of young women will transform their demographic behavior. As one of the earliest adopters of a free primary education program in sub-Saharan Africa, Malawi provides the first opportunity to examine the potential consequences of the FPE policies. The government removed all school fees at the primary level shortly after the country's transition to multiparty democracy in 1994. The policy was implemented quickly, around four months after the election and with limited time to train new teachers or build new classrooms to meet the expected increase in enrollments.

Following the implementation of the FPE policy, school participation increased rapidly not only among primary school aged children, but also for older students who either enrolled in primary school for the first time or re-enrolled following an early school dropout. Enrollment levels increased from 1.9 million students in the 1993-94 academic year to almost 2.9 million in 1994-95 ( EMIS 2012). As a consequence of this policy, almost all children in Malawi enter school, even if grade attainment remains relatively low. In 1992, 59 percent of children aged 6-14 years old were enrolled in school, relative to 91 percent in 2010, but primary school completion rates only increased from approximately 24 percent to 37 percent among 20-24 year olds over the same period ( National Statistical Office (NSO) and ICF Macro 2011; National Statistical Office (NSO) and Macro International Inc. 1992).

Before the implementation of the FPE policy, less than 11 percent of students who successfully passed the primary school leaving certificate examination (PSLCE), taken at the end of the eighth grade, were able to find a place at a conventional government secondary school ( EMIS 1994). In the years following the policy, the number of students taking and passing the PSLCE increased, placing even greater pressure on placement into secondary schools. In 1998, the government expanded access to secondary school by converting existing distance education centers into Community Day Secondary schools (CDSS). These new schools were intended as a second tier of schools for students who did not score high enough on the PSLCE to gain admission to the conventional secondary schools that existed before the education reforms. After the CDSS were introduced, the government was able to admit to secondary school approximately 40 percent of students who passed the PSLCE ( EMIS 2000). The number of private schools also increased over this period; from 2001 to 2012, the proportion of students enrolled in private schools increased from 13 to 30 percent of all secondary school students ( World Bank 2010; EMIS 2012). Despite these gains, participation in secondary school remains limited and the secondary school gross enrollment ratio in Malawi, estimated at 16 percent of secondary school-aged youth in 2007, is only a third as high as the levels estimated for the other countries in southern Africa ( World Bank 2010).

Although primary school enrollment rates increased and school entry has become virtually universal since the 1994 education reform, primary school quality declined due to the state's limited ability to finance the school system ( World Bank 2010). From the 1993/94 to 1994/95 academic years, the average student-teacher ratio actually declined from 68 to 62, but this improvement was due to the recruitment of underqualified teachers to staff primary schools; the ratio of students to qualified teachers increased from 82 to 108 over the same period, and has continued to remain high over time ( EMIS 1994; EMIS 1995). Learning outcomes have also declined over time and reading and mathematics performance on the SACMEQ exams have not yet returned to their pre-FPE levels ( Chimombo 2005; Milner, Mulera, and Chimuzu 2011). Despite increased numbers of students reaching the final year of primary school, the pass rate of the PSLCE has also declined over time from 79 percent of examinees in 1994 to 69 percent in 2012 ( EMIS 1994; EMIS 2012). The quality of secondary schools has also become more heterogeneous, as the CDSS receive less funding and have fewer qualified teachers than the conventional secondary schools, and private secondary schools are not well regulated ( World Bank 2004b; Chimombo et al. 2014). Student performance on the junior secondary certificate of education (JCE), taken at the end of the second year of secondary school, is substantially better in the conventional secondary schools than in the CDSS. Although part of this difference can be attributed to differences in the abilities of students between these two types of government schools, regression discontinuity analyses have shown that enrollment at the conventional schools yields significantly better JCE performance than enrollment at the CDSS for students with comparable performance on the PSLCE ( Hoop 2010).

Despite deteriorating school quality, school enrollment increased in Malawi and has remained high for the past twenty years. This situation provides an interesting context for examining whether the demographic promise of expanded female education has been achieved. If the education gradient in age at first birth remained constant over time, then the increased schooling attainment in the years following the free primary education policy and the expansion of secondary schooling should have led to a later age at first birth at the population level. It is also possible that the expansion of schooling increased the positive externalities of education ( Caldwell 1980; Axinn and Barber 2001), as women with little or no education adopt the demographic behaviors of their more educated peers. In this scenario, women with little or no education would begin to postpone their first birth to later ages, leading over time to a weaker education gradient and, as with the first hypothesis, a later age at first birth at the population level. The shift to low school quality, however, may undermine these potential outcomes, eroding the extent to which additional years of schooling attainment postpone the age at first birth. As with the second hypothesis, this shift would also lead to a weaker education gradient, albeit one driven by earlier fertility amongst more educated women. The experiences of young women in Malawi serve as an important harbinger of the demographic consequences of the push for "Education for All" in deeply resource-constrained systems.

Data

This study uses data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) to evaluate changes in the association between schooling attainment and the timing of first birth in Malawi. Four Demographic and Health Surveys have been collected in Malawi: 1992, 2000, 2004, and 2010. This range of survey dates makes it possible to compare the age of first birth for women who came of age prior to the implementation of Malawi's education policies in the mid-1990s to the experience of women from later cohorts who had either partial or full exposure to these policies during childhood.

The DHS are nationally representative stratified cluster surveys of reproductive aged women, aged 15-49 years old. At each survey round, a sample of clusters was stratified by urban/rural status and selected with the probability proportional to size. Households were then selected within each cluster and all resident reproductive aged women were interviewed. Although the DHS also interviews a representative sample of men aged 15-54 years old, the survey does not ask men questions about the timing of their first birth; this analysis, therefore, focuses only on female respondents. Each survey round is weighted to yield nationally representative results. The survey rounds differ, however, in their degree of sub-national representation. The 1992 survey oversampled respondents in the Northern region and in urban areas in order to achieve sufficient statistical power to produce representative estimates at the regional and urban/rural levels. In contrast, the 2000 and 2004 surveys oversampled a subset of the country's districtsi in order to produce district-level estimates for the selected areas. Finally, the 2010 survey was designed to be representative at the district level for all districts in the country. All rounds are weighted to be nationally representative.

The DHS records age at first birth in months. Any young woman who has not yet given birth at the time of the interview is censored at their age at the time of the interview. The first section of the analysis uses event history analysisii to examine whether the expansion of education led to a later age at first birth across the four survey rounds, and whether the education gradient in fertility timing changed over time. This analysis is restricted to women aged 20-24 years old at each survey round, yielding an analytic sample of 11,201 respondents (see Table 1). All regressions are adjusted for the complex survey design of the DHS.iii The key explanatory variables are years of schooling completed and birth cohort. Years of schooling completed is coded as a categorical variable: never attended, lower primary (grades 1-4), upper primary (grades 5-8), and secondary or higher (grades 9+). As the analysis is restricted to respondents aged 20-24 years old at the time of each survey, birth cohort is, in this case, determined by survey round: 1992, 2000, 2004, and 2010. The interaction between schooling attainment and birth cohort is used to determine whether the relationship between schooling attainment and the timing of first birth has changed over time. In addition to these variables, all regression models control for urban/rural residence and region (Northern, Central, Southern) in order to account for historic differences in schooling enrollment and the distribution of ethnic groups.iv

Table 1.

Survey year

Age when free primary introduced

Age when CDSS created

Exposure to education policies

Median years of schooling completed

Median age of first birth

N

The second section of the analysis uses a two-stage least squares (2SLS) regression to examine the causal effect of exposure to the education policies on age at first birth in Malawi. This analysis follows the example of Behrman ( Behrman 2015a) and uses exposure to the education reforms as an instrumental variable: women who were primary school-age (13 years old or younger) in 1994 would have benefitted more from the implementation of the FPE policy than women who were 14 years old or older. Young women just above and below this cut-off age would be expected to be similar in all observed and unobserved characteristics other than their exposure to the FPE policy. Furthermore, these same young women would have been just above and below 18 years old in 1998 when the government expanded secondary schooling. In order to maximize the comparability of women above and below the cut-off for exposure to the policies, this section of the analysis is restricted to women born 1978-1984 and sampled in the 2010 Demographic and Health Survey. Almost 98 percent of these women reported a birth by the time of the survey, so there is minimal bias due to right censoring of the age at first birth.

In the first stage of the analysis, I use exposure to these education policies as an instrument to predict years of schooling completed. This binary variable is constructed so that women who were born 1981-1984 are coded 1 for exposure, and women born 1977-1980 were coded 0 for non-exposure. In the second stage of the regression, the years of schooling predicted in the first stage are used to estimate age at first birth. Similar to the event history analysis, these models include an indicator of urban residence. However, since the 2010 DHS was designed to be fully representative at the district level, I am able to use fixed effects for the 27 districts measured in the 2010 DHS instead of region. Additional control variables are also available in the 2010 DHS, including religion and ethnicity. Religion is included as a four category variable (Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, and Other/No religion), and ethnicity is included as a six category variable (Chewa, Tumbuka, Lomwe, Yao, Ngoni, and Other ethnicities). Finally, following Ueyama and Yamauchi (2009), I use the sibling history module to calculate the level of adult mortality-deaths per 1,000 adults aged 26-30-to which respondents were exposed at age 15v as a proxy for exposure to the HIV epidemic prior to the onset of childbearing. The results of the 2SLS regression are presented in comparison to an ordinary least squares regression that does not address the endogeneity of schooling.

Results

Schooling Attainment

Schooling attainment increased rapidly following the implementation of Malawi's education policies. Women from the earliest cohort, who were interviewed before the policy was put in place, completed a median 2.9 years of schooling ( Table 1). Over 40 percent of women interviewed in 1992 never attended school, 52 percent attended primary school, and less than seven percent attended secondary school or higher ( Figure 1). Women from the more recent cohorts, however, had varying degrees of exposure to the policies. Individuals interviewed in 2000 were 14-18 years old in 1994 and 18-22 years old in 1998. Although a student who progressed through school on time and without any interruptions would be expected finish primary school at age 14 and to finish secondary school by age 18, the reality is that delayed school entry and grade repetition are very common, resulting in many students who are enrolled behind the appropriate grade for age ( World Bank 2010). The median number of completed school years was one grade higher for the cohort interviewed in 2000 relative to the oldest cohort, demonstrating that at least some women were able to take advantage of the policies despite being older than the standard age range. A more dramatic shift occurred in the rate of school ever attendance: Figure 1 shows that from the 1992 to the 2000 survey, the proportion of 20-24 year old women who had never attended school declined from 41 percent to 20 percent.

The two younger cohorts, interviewed in 2004 and 2010, were still primary-school aged at the time the FPE policy was implemented. By the time these women were 20-24 years old and interviewed in the DHS, the median years of school completed for these cohorts were 5.2 and 5.8, respectively ( Table 1). The proportion of women who had never enrolled in school continued to decline; by the time of the 2010 survey, only eight percent of women had never attended school. Not only did more young women ever attend school, but the proportion who attended upper primary school, beyond standard five, increased across the four cohorts from 28 to 40 percent ( Figure 1). These cohorts also benefited from the expansion of government secondary schools in 1998 and the parallel expansion of private secondary schools; by 2010, 27 percent of young women had ever attended secondary.

Timing of First Birth

If the education gradient in the age at first birth remained constant over time, then the shift to higher schooling levels should have led to a later age at first birth in the most recent cohorts. Alternately, if the expansion of education increased the positive externalities of education and women with little or no education began to postpone their first births and behave more similar to women with more education, then the median age at first birth should also have increased over time. Instead, the median age of first birth has been resistant to change over time. The median age at first birth for 20-24 year old women was 18.9 for both the 1992 and the 2010 cohorts ( Table 1), despite a brief increase to 19.3 in 2000.vi The relative stability of the median age at first birth belies larger shifts in the timing of first birth by level of schooling attainment. Figure 2 shows the proportion of women aged 20-24 who had given birth before age 20 by survey year and highest level of schooling attainment. First, there was no significant difference in the proportion of women who gave birth before age 20 between women who had never attended school and those who had attended primary school. Women who had attended secondary school, however, were more than half as likely to have had a birth by age 20 as compared to women who had never attended school or who had stopped schooling at the primary level. Second, the trend toward larger proportions of women giving birth by age 20 was statistically significant for women who attended primary and secondary school. The largest difference was amongst women who had attended secondary school; in 1992 only 18 percent of secondary school attenders had given birth by age 20, as compared to almost 36 percent of women in 2010. There was a similar change for women who had attended primary school, with the proportion rising from approximately 62 to almost 79 percent across the earliest and most recent cohorts. These patterns, however, disguise more subtle shifts that occurred in the age of first birth.

Table 2 presents the coefficients from the event history analysis. Positive coefficients indicate covariates that increase the expected time to failure ( Cleves et al. 2013), or, in this analysis, a later age at first birth. Negative coefficients, therefore, indicate an earlier age at first birth. The first column examines the hypothesis that the expansion of education has led to a later age at first birth across the four cohorts. Although all of the coefficients are negative, indicating that women in each cohort interviewed in 2000-2010 gave birth earlier than women in the earliest cohort, only the coefficient for the 2010 cohort was statistically significant at the 5 percent level. This pattern confirms the earlier finding that the shifting educational composition of women failed to lead to a later age at first birth among the more recent cohorts relative to the cohort interviewed before the implementation of the education policies and indicates that the demographic promise of postponed fertility has failed to materialize in Malawi.

Table 2.

(1)

(2)

(3)

Coef.

S.E.

Coef.

S.E.

Coef.

S.E.

Survey year (ref. 1992)

Region (ref. Northern)

Southern

−0.01

0.01

0.02

0.00
**
0.01

0.00
**

Schooling attainment (ref. None)

Secondary +

0.15

0.01
***
0.22

0.03
***

Interaction terms

The second column adds the highest level of schooling attainment to the previous model. Schooling attainment is significantly associated with the timing of first birth. Although there was no statistically significant difference in the timing of first birth between women who had never attended school and women who had attended primary school, young women who had ever attended secondary school were only 29 percent as likely to have a birth as women who had never attended school (hazard ratio = exp(−p*β)). Controlling for education, the cohort differences also become statistically significant and increase in magnitude with each successive cohort. The cohort interviewed in 2010 had a hazard of giving birth that was more than 1.5 times larger than the hazard for the women interviewed in 1992.

The third model presented in Table 2 adds terms for the interaction between cohort and schooling attainment in order to test whether the education gradient in the timing of first birth has changed over time. Figure 3 shows the predicted survival function for women from the earliest and most recent cohorts who never attended school and who attended secondary school based on the third model. In contrast to Model 2, the coefficient estimated on the most recent cohort is not statistically significant, indicating that there is no difference in the transition to first birth when comparing women from the earliest and most recent cohorts who never attended school. There is also no significant association between attending primary school and the timing of first birth; this association has been stable over time, as indicated by the non-significant interactions between primary school attainment and cohort, with the exception of an earlier transition to first birth for women who only attained lower primary in the most recent cohort. In contrast, women who attended secondary school gave birth at significantly later ages than women who never attended school; for the earliest cohort, the hazard ratio for women with secondary schooling relative to never attending was 0.15. The interaction between secondary school and cohort, however, is negative and significant for all cohorts. Even though attending secondary school decreases the hazard of first birth, the effect is not as large for secondary school attenders from the more recent cohorts.

Figure 3.

Predicted proportion women who had not given birth, by schooling attainment and cohort, Malawi 1992-2010

Possible Contributing Factors

The impact of Malawi's education reforms has been mixed. School participation and schooling attainment increased dramatically: for the most recent cohort, relatively few women never enroll in school and the average young woman has completed three additional years of schooling relative to women who grew up before the policy was implemented. Given the compositional shift in schooling attainment, one would have expected to observe a population-level delay in the median age at first birth. Instead, no such change in fertility materialized and the median age at first birth reported by young women did not significantly change from 1992 to 2010, in part due to a declining age at first birth amongst women who ever attended secondary school. The next section of the paper explores several factors that may be contributing to this pattern.

Changing Selectivity

The first possibility is lower selectivity over time for young women who achieve higher levels of grade attainment. The FPE policy removed all school fees through the eighth grade; although families were still responsible for other schooling costs, such as school supplies and uniforms, the 1994 policy weakened the financial barrier for school enrollment. This shift increased access to schooling for the poor, although socio-economic disparities in grade attainment persist ( Al-Samarrai and Zaman 2007; Kadzamira and Rose 2003). Furthermore, students who in past cohorts would not have been eligible to attend secondary school given their relatively lower PSLCE scores were able, after the 1998 secondary school expansion, to gain admission to either a CDSS or to a private school. If prior cohorts were self-selected by the expected gains from education or by their schooling and fertility preferences, then the expansion of primary and secondary schooling may have accommodated more "marginal" students ( Filmer and Schady 2009), suggesting that additional years of schooling may not postpone fertility in the same ways for all students.

Instrumental variables are one tool for controlling for the selectivity of grade attainment and its potentially endogenous relationship with fertility timing. If young women who complete more grades of school possess characteristics that also make them more likely to delay childbearing, then a simple regression will overestimate the effect of schooling attainment on the timing of first birth. Columns 1 and 2 of Table 3 present results of the ordinary least squares (OLS) and two-stage least squares (2SLS) regressions. The 2SLS regression uses exposure to Malawi's education policies, defined as young women who were born 1981-1984 relative to women who were born 1977-1980, as an instrument to estimate years of schooling completed. Results from the OLS regression are in the first column of Table 3. In this model, there is a significant and positive association between years of schooling completed and age at first birth, controlling for ethnicity, religion, urban residence, and district.vii The second column of Table 3 presents the second-stage results of the instrumental variable analysis (see Appendix Table 1 for the first-stage results).viii In contrast to the OLS results, the association between years of schooling and age at first birth is significant and negative in the 2SLS model. For each additional year of schooling, the age at first birth is 0.44 years earlier.ix

Table 3.

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

Coef.

SE

Coef.

SE

Coef.

SE

Coef.

SE

Years of schooling

0.29

0.01
***
−0.44

0.21
*
0.29

0.01
***
−0.34

0.22

Adult mortality at age 15

−0.01

0.00
***
−0.00

0.01

Ethnicity (ref. Chewa)

Lomwe

−0.50

0.17
**
−0.44

0.26

−0.49

0.17
**
−0.45

0.24

Religion (ref. Catholic)

Constant

17.47

0.25
***
21.84

1.34
***
18.18

0.34
***
21.54

1.26
***

Appendix Table 1.

(2)

(4)

Coef.

SE

Coef.

SE

Ethnicity (ref. Chewa)

Religion (ref. Catholic)

The instrumental variables model assumes that the education policy was the only change in the environment that affects timing of birth and that otherwise the cohorts before and after the policy faced similar choices and constraints. This assumption, however, may not be valid if the two cohorts experienced different stages of the HIV epidemic. HIV prevalence in Malawi peaked in 1999, when 16.4 percent of adults aged 15-49 were estimated to be infected with HIV ( Government of Malawi 2014). The level of adult mortality to which respondents were exposed at 15 significantly increased from the earlier to the later cohort, from 43 to 52 deaths per 1,000 adults aged 26-30. Adult mortality was significantly associated with age at first birth in the OLS, although the magnitude of the association was small; each additional death per 1,000 lowered the age at first birth by 0.01 years ( Table 3, Model 3). When adult mortality was included in the 2SLS regression ( Table 3, Model 4), the association between years of schooling and the age of first birth became smaller and was no longer statistically significant (p=0.113). Furthermore, the association between adult mortality and age at first birth was no longer statistically significant. Consistent with the first set of models, these findings indicate that, controlling for adolescent exposure to the HIV epidemic, additional years of schooling do not postpone the age of first birth.x

Table 4 presents the second-stage regression results for a set of alternate measures of early fertility. Models 1 and 2 use a probit regression with instrumental variables to examine the probability of giving birth by ages 18 and 20. When exposure to the education reforms is included as an instrumental variable, the probability of giving birth by age 20 increases by 11 percent with each year of schooling. The probability of giving birth by age 18 increases by 9 percent with each year of schooling, although this result is only marginally significant (p=0.094). Given that almost 90 percent of first births in Malawi occur within marriage ( NSO and ICF 2010), the age at first marriage serves as an alternate measure of early childbearing. Model 3 shows that each additional year of schooling reduces the age of first marriage by 0.34 years, although this association is only marginally significant (p=0.083).

Table 4.

(1)
Birth by age 18

(2)
Birth by age 20

(3)
Age at first marriage

Coef.

SE

Coef.

SE

Coef.

SE

Ethnicity (ref. Chewa)

Lomwe

0.17

0.09

0.10

0.09

−0.63

0.28
*

Religion (ref. Catholic)

Protestant

0.16

0.06
**
0.11

0.06

−0.59

0.24
*

Other/none

0.53

0.21
*
0.41

0.21

−1.76

0.80
*

Constant

−0.88

0.29
**
−0.26

0.37

20.73

1.35
***

The development discourse around expanding female education assumes that the effect of education on demographic outcomes will remain stable and not be diluted by a changing student population. However, the results presented in Tables 2 and 3 suggest that the expansion of schooling in Malawi has not yielded the demographic benefits traditionally associated with greater schooling attainment. As Jennifer Johnson-Hanks notes (2006: 20), "selectivity effects are not threats to data quality, but are instead the processes most central to understanding a phenomenon." Although "selection" is an easy explanation, it is also clear from the pattern of education and fertility in Malawi that, in the years following the education reforms, schools were not addressing the needs of all students. These findings highlight the need to understand the schooling conditions required for education to change the fertility behavior of more 'marginal' students.

Shifts in Age Pattern of Enrollment

One process commonly hypothesized to explain the education gradient in the age at first birth is the incapacitation effect: the time that young women spend in school reduces their exposure to the risk of pregnancy by reducing time available to engage in sexual activity and by culturally categorizing schoolgirls as ineligible for marriage or sexual relationships. The longer a young woman remains enrolled in school, the more the onset of childbearing is postponed. However, due to the shifts in school enrollment and grade progression triggered by Malawi's education policies, young women from the most recent cohorts may not exit school at the same ages as women from earlier cohorts. If the FPE policy enabled children to enter school earlier or to have less grade repetition due to the inability to pay school fees, then the average age of students at a given grade level should decline over time. Lucas and Mbiti (2012) found evidence for this pattern in Kenya, where the implementation of an FPE policy was associated with an earlier age at school entry for girls, as well as an earlier age at primary school completion. Furthermore, the creation of the CDSS, with a lower test score threshold for admission, means that students may be more likely to gain admission to secondary school the first time that they take the PSLCE, rather than repeating the last year of primary school in order to improve their chances of admission. Figure 4 shows that, in each year of secondary school, currently enrolled students in the two most recent surveys are younger than students enrolled at the same level in the earlier surveys. T-tests comparing the average age of students enrolled in each grade across the survey rounds indicate that there is no significant difference in the average age of students in 1992 compared to 2000, but all other differences are statistically significant, confirming that female secondary school students have become younger over time. A similar process has occurred for male students (results not shown). It is important to note, however, that these shifts in the age composition of secondary school students can only be contributing to the age pattern of first birth for 20-24 year old women interviewed in 2010; the group of 20-24 year olds interviewed in 2004 would have been attending secondary school at the time of the 2000 survey, when the age shift had not yet begun. Nonetheless, this age shift suggests that subsequent cohorts of young women will complete secondary school at younger ages, contributing to an early transition to first birth.

Shifts in School Quality

The diversification of secondary schools may also have generated heterogeneity in the effects of secondary school, contingent on the type of school attended. One possible consequence of these differences in school quality is that the timing of first birth has remained unchanged among young women enrolled in the conventional secondary schools, but students at the community day or private secondary schools give birth at younger ages. Students at these lower performing secondary schools may be less likely to find wage employment, either because of lower skill levels or perceived worse quality credentials. CDSS are also more likely than conventional secondary schools to be located in rural areas where employment opportunities are limited. The lack of post-educational opportunities for students with poor skills may weaken the motivation of young women to postpone family formation in order to focus on career development. Unfortunately, the DHS does not collect information about the type of school attended by respondents ( National Statistics Office and ORC Macro 2011).

Differences in school quality across the types of secondary schools may also lead to differences in schoolgirl pregnancy rates. Schoolgirl pregnancy draws into question the direction of causality between education and the timing of first birth, if a pregnancy or birth prematurely truncates schooling attainment. As Frye (2012) notes, secondary school teachers in Malawi claim responsibility for enforcing taboos against schoolgirl pregnancy, actively discouraging student sexual activity and patrolling student dorms in order to supervise student behavior. Schools with fewer resources may provide less supervision of students or be less vigilant about student attendance. Unsupervised time may create opportunities for more frequent sexual activity and increase the chances of an early pregnancy and birth. Given that the CDSS are underfunded relative to the conventional government secondary schools ( World Bank 2004), the CDSS may be less successful at delaying childbearing. It is also possible that students at lower performing schools may be more pessimistic about their academic prospects and less motivated to avoid a mistimed pregnancy or birth ( Bledsoe and Cohen 1993). Finally, if less advantaged students are more likely to enroll at the CDSS than at the conventional government schools, then those students may be more reliant on financial support from relatives or boyfriends, putting them at greater risk of pregnancy. Data from the Malawi Ministry of Education confirm that the reported rate of secondary school dropout attributable to pregnancy is twice as high in the CDSS as in the conventional secondary schools ( EMIS 2012).

Other Contributing Factors

These potential explanations for the pattern of declining age at first birth among young women who attended secondary school focus on issues related to shifts in the selectivity of secondary school attendance and the nature of secondary school expansion. Alternative explanations, however, point towards macro-level issues and challenge the prevalent policy discourse about the transformative potential of expanded female education. The persistence of gendered school and classroom environments may constrain girls' opportunities for learning and skill development at all levels, reinforcing traditional gender norms that limit women's options and actions ( Aikman, Unterhalter, and Challender 2005). Studies from a range of contexts across sub-Saharan Africa, including Malawi, have found evidence that teachers provide a less challenging environment and maintain lower performance expectations for female students than for males, leading to lower skill acquisition and less in-class participation (Anderson-Levitt, Bloch and Soumare 1998; Mensch and Lloyd 1998; Colclough, Rose and Tembon 2000; Chisamya et al. 2012). The academic performance of female students is also more sensitive to school quality; one recent study from Malawi found that girls' math abilities were more adversely affected than boys' by high student-teacher ratios and less experienced teachers ( Grant et al. 2011). These studies have also found that female students spend more time than males performing non-school activities, such as cleaning school facilities and fetching water, during school hours and after-hours; these responsibilities further reduce young women's opportunities to learn. As shown in Figure 5, female students are substantially less likely to pass the national examinations at the end of secondary school, although the performance gender gap has narrowed over time. Girls are also more likely to leave school with weaker literacy and numeracy skills that are more vulnerable than those of boys to being lost over time (Soler-Hampesjek et al 2014). If schooling expands without a shift towards more equitable gender environments, then the possibilities for delayed childbearing may be compromised.

The structure of the labor market may also limit the transformative impact of expanded schooling. The expansion of education has been framed as essential for economic development in less developed countries, as schooling is presumed to increase productivity and drive entrepreneurial activity. Greater participation in the labor force will, in turn, delay childbearing by increasing living standards and by shifting the opportunity cost of women's time as young women are motivated to develop their careers. These processes, however, will be limited if the labor force is unable to absorb greater numbers of educated youth. Participation in wage employment among secondary school leavers in Malawi declined in the years following the expansion of secondary schooling ( Al-Samarrai and Bennell 2007). Furthermore, according to the 2010 Malawi Integrated Household Survey, only 13 percent of women older than 20 years who attended secondary school participated in wage employment, compared to almost 29 percent of men ( National Statistics Organization 2010). As a result, many secondary school graduates are "just staying" in rural areas, with few local employment options outside of agriculture. To the extent that schooling attainment postpones childbearing through women's labor force participation or aspirations, the limited wage opportunities for educated young adults in Malawi may hinder this mechanism.

Conclusion

The free primary education policy and the subsequent expansion of secondary schooling in Malawi did not lead to a later age at first birth among women. The cohorts educated after these policies were implemented had median ages of first birth comparable to that of women from earlier cohorts; this stagnation over a period of schooling expansion was partly driven by an earlier transition to childbearing among women who ever attended secondary school. It remains to be seen whether the increased schooling of the most recent cohorts will affect subsequent fertility or change other demographic outcomes such as child mortality. A recent paper by Julia Behrman (2015b) used the same education policies examined here as instrumental variables to examine the association between years of schooling and desired fertility in Malawi. She found that each additional year of schooling reduced the ideal number of children by a third of a birth; this finding suggests that although the expansion of education did not decrease early childbearing it may eventually lead to lower completed cohort fertility.

The pattern of first births in Malawi raises important questions about the consequences of educational expansion in other African countries that implemented FPE policies-and, in some cases, free secondary education policies-after Malawi. The emerging evidence from the region suggests that the expansion of school participation has been at the expense of school quality ( Pritchett 2013; World Bank and UNICEF 2009), which may compromise the potential for these policies to trigger demographic change. As one of the earliest countries in sub-Saharan Africa to implement a lasting FPE policy, Malawi may signal the future of demographic patterns in the region. While FPE policies subsequently implemented in other countries were executed with greater sensitivity to their effects on school quality in the face of rising enrollment numbers, school quality nonetheless deteriorated across the region. The student-teacher ratio increased after the abolition of school fees in countries including Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia ( Taylor and Spaull 2015; Grogan 2006), and many countries continue to struggle with the financial sustainability of these policies ( World Bank and UNICEF 2009). Although indicators of school quality and learning outcomes in Malawi are among the worst in Southern and Eastern Africa ( Taylor and Spaull 2015), these general patterns suggest that other countries are also experiencing the conditions that weakened the association between schooling attainment and age at first birth in Malawi.

Countries have also had different responses to the increased demand for secondary schooling created by larger numbers of students completing primary; in many cases, this demand has been met largely through an expansion of the private school sector ( Heyneman and Stern 2014). These circumstances create unique environments for disentangling the discrete contributions of grade attainment, age at school leaving, and academic skills to fertility timing and for investigating the pathways through which these dimensions of education operate. If education postpones childbearing by improving women's empowerment and autonomy, there may be a threshold level of school quality necessary for girls to gain these skills. Young women's ability to gain confidence, decision-making, and critical thinking skills may be bolstered by lower student-teacher ratios and better teacher training and qualifications, coupled with a more concerted effort to promote gender equality within the classroom ( Aikman, Unterhalter, and Challender 2005). Attending school may not be sufficient for young women to gain these skills if they are treated differently from their peers and teachers maintain lower performance expectations for female students. These patterns also point toward the possibility that expanded schooling attainment will not change demographic outcomes unless it is reinforced by more far reaching development initiatives that create economic opportunities for educated youth. If young women perceive few options other than marriage after leaving school, then patterns of childbearing are unlikely to change.

These findings also raise the question of whether the expansion of secondary schooling in the absence of the free primary education policy would have led to the same decline in the average age at first birth among women who attended secondary school. Given the extremely limited access to secondary schooling before the FPE policy was implemented, it would have been possible for secondary education to expand even without an increase in the number of students completing primary school. Any expansion of secondary school would have weakened the selectivity of enrollment, as students with lower exam performance gained admission to secondary school. It may have been possible, however, to expand secondary school and maintain a higher level of quality, although it's unclear whether increased access to high quality secondary would have created more economic opportunities for young women without a parallel expansion of the labor market.

Although the expansion of schooling has not led to a later age at first birth in Malawi, this is not to imply that these cohorts would have been better off in the absence of these education policies. Even though there has been an increase in the years of school required to achieve basic literacy and numeracy ( Kadzamira and Rose 2003), population level literacy rates improved as the proportion of young women who never attended school declined ( Feeney 2014). Similarly, Taylor and Spaull (2015) found that the absolute number of literate youth increased with schooling expansion, even as the average performance of students on national exams declined. Some scholars have argued that literacy may be the most important dimension of education for improving child survival ( LeVine et al. 2012; Smith-Greenaway 2013), with a recent study by Gakidou and colleagues (2009) suggesting that more than half of the global decline in child mortality could be attributed to expanded female education. Therefore, the possibility remains that young women in Malawi will be able to translate their expanded educational opportunities into improved child outcomes, even though the transition to first birth was not delayed.

Appendix Table 2.

Years of schooling

Years of secondary schooling

(1)
1976-1985

(2)
1978-1983

(3)
1981-1988

(4)
1977-1984

Coef.

SE

Coef.

SE

Coef.

SE

Coef.

SE

Exposure to education policies

0.77

0.30
***
0.47

0.13
***
0.12

0.10

0.13

0.15

Ethnicity (ref. Chewa)

Lomwe

0.15

0.22

0.22

0.28

0.47

0.22
*
−0.31

0.33

Religion (ref. Catholic)

Appendix Table 3.

(1)
Birth by age 18

(2)
Birth by age 20

(3)
Age at first marriage

Coef.

SE

Coef.

SE

Coef.

SE

Ethnicity (ref. Chewa)

Religion (ref. Catholic)

Acknowledgments

Previous versions of this paper benefited from discussions with and feedback from Julia Behrman, Jason Fletcher, Esme Kadzamira, Nancy Kendall, Barbara Mensch, Jenna Nobles, Jayanti Owens, Stephanie Psaki, Jim Raymo, Nancy Rydberg, Gay Seidman, and three anonymous reviewers. I would also like to thank my research assistant, Jinho Kim. This research was supported by a grant from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Graduate School and a core grant (P2C HD047873) from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Development to the Center for Demography and Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Footnotes

i

Malawi currently has 28 districts. In 2000, 11 districts were oversampled by the DHS to produce representative district-level estimates (Lilongwe, Blantyre, Zomba, Mzimba, Mangochi, Kasungu, Salima, Machinga, Mulanje, Thyolo, and Karonga). The same districts were oversampled in 2004, with the exception of Karonga. The sample size was expanded in 2010 in order to produce district-level estimates for all districts. However, two districts (Likoma and Nkhata Bay) were combined in the 2010 data, for a total of 27 districts identified in the dataset.

ii

The covariates violate the proportionality assumption, indicating that an accelerated failure time model is more appropriate than a proportional hazards model for these data ( Cleves et al. 2013). Preliminary analyses indicated that a Weibull distribution provided the best model fit. These analyses were conducted using the "streg" command in Stata (StataCorp 2013).

iii

The accelerated failure time regressions are made using the "svy" command in Stata (StataCorp 2013), which uses the sampling weights and clusters to adjust the estimates.

iv

Formal education was historically available through British missionary schools, which had a greater presence in Northern Malawi. Under the Banda regime, the state instituted enrollment quotas that favored members of the Chewa ethnic group, who mostly resided in the Central region. The largest ethnic group in the Southern region, the Yao, are predominantly Muslim, and have been less well integrated into schooling opportunities, contributing to lower school participation rates, especially for women, in the South ( Kalipeni 1997; Kendall 2007).

v

The level of adult mortality was calculated at the district level as the number of deaths to cohort c between the ages 26 and 30, divided by the number of persons in cohort c who survived to age 26. Cohort c refers to adults who would be 26-30 years old at the time the respondent was 15 years old.

vi

If the median age at first birth is measured using data from women aged 30-34 in 2010, the same cohort as women aged 20-24 in 2000, it decreases from 19.3 to 19.0. Given that prior studies of the quality of event reporting have documented a greater tendency for forward displacement of the time of events ( Blanc and Rutenberg 1990; Gage 1995), the backward displacement observed for women in the Malawi Demographic and Health Surveys is surprising. Given the higher levels of educational attainment and the social bias against schoolgirl pregnancy in Malawi, one would have expected to observe forward displacement. A possible explanation for the backward displacement might be differential mortality related to the HIV epidemic. Studies from Malawi and other African countries have observed a positive education gradient in HIV prevalence, such that more educated individuals are more likely to become infected than less educated individuals, although this association is stronger for men than for women ( National Statistical Office (NSO) and ICF Macro 2011; Fortson 2008). If more educated women with later ages at first birth were more likely to become infected and die, this might lead to a lower observed median age at first birth among surviving women.

vii

The analysis in Table 2 suggests that the fertility postponing effects of attending secondary school have been particularly vulnerable to change over time. Unfortunately, instrumental variable analysis does not support a more nuanced analysis of the association between schooling attainment and the age at first birth, and a continuous measure of grade attainment is used in the analysis presented in Table 3.

viii

The first stage regression for Table 3, Model 2 (see Appendix Table 1) indicates that exposure to the policy is strongly associated with the endogenous variable, grade attainment. The first-stage F-statistic is 35.38.

ix

Several robustness checks were also calculated. These results are presented in Appendix Table 2. First, I tested the sensitivity of the range of birth years included in the instrument for exposure to the education policy: 1976-1980/1981-1985, 1978-1980/1981-1983. These results were comparable to those of the main instrument. Second, I substituted an instrument that compared women who had full exposure to the education policy to those women who had early partial exposure: 1981-1984/1985-1988. There was no significant difference in the grade attainment of women with full and early partial exposure to the schooling policies; therefore, this variable is rejected as a valid instrument. Third, I recoded the grade attainment variable as years of secondary school. There was no significant association between the instrument and years of secondary school; therefore, the instrument is not valid.

x

Given that adult mortality is not associated with years of schooling, it is rejected as an instrument and is included as an exogenous independent variable in the regression. The inclusion of adult mortality reduces the F-statistic for the education policy variable from 35.38 in Model 2 to 34.56 in Model 4.

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The Demographic Promise of Expanded Female Education: Trends in the Age at First Birth in Malawi

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The expansion of female education has been promoted as a way to postpone the age of first birth. In sub-Saharan Africa, the first cohorts to benefit from policies that expanded access to education are now reaching adulthood and beginning ...

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Increased Education: An increasing number on the education of women. There has been more opportunities, expansions, and career changes that give more.

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For long time period women have had a large increase based on gender inequality and in most countries, the legal barriers to women’s educational, economic, social, and political participation are gone. Worldwide, women are more educated today than at any point in history, and gender gaps between women’s and men’s academic attainments are rare in countries with high levels of educational achievement.

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DEEPER LOOKS

The Future of Women's Rights

This paper was produced by the National Intelligence Council's Strategic Futures Group in consultation with outside experts and Intelligence Community analysts to help inform the integrated Global Trends product, which published in March 2021. However, the analysis does not reflect official US Government policy, the breadth of intelligence sources, or the full range of perspectives within the US Intelligence Community.

After decades of improvements in women's formal education, economic participation, and political leadership, progress in many countries has slowed in recent years, due to the slowing progress in some regions against higher-level human development goals, strongly held views of women's roles in a number of countries, and the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, deep-seated patriarchal attitudes are likely to remain a hindrance to gender equality in some regions during the next two decades. Some polling and research indicates that these attitudes may change over generational periods, with the potential for more rapid change due to societal disruption, such as wars and perhaps the pandemic. Expanding Internet access and e-commerce platforms over time could also enable more women in more places to push for greater equality, as well as improve their prospects for employment and higher levels of education, but also might facilitate repression by authoritarian regimes.

For many decades, the world has seen large increases in gender equality, and in most countries, the legal barriers to women's educational, economic, social, and political participation are gone. Worldwide, women are more educated today than at any point in history, and gender gaps between women's and men's academic attainments are rare in countries with high levels of educational achievement. In fact, women in some 50 countries on average have achieved a higher level of education than men have, and in others, they live longer and are healthier.

Female labor force participation rose markedly in the 20th century, and in a majority of countries at all income levels women's participation in paid labor is higher today than it was in 1990. Since the end of World War II, 64 countries on every continent have had at least one elected or appointed female head of state. Eighty-five percent of them took office after 1990. Latin America and the Caribbean are notable with 12 of the region's 33 countries having had female heads of state (including presidents and prime ministers), with women currently leading Aruba, Barbados, St. Maarten, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Growing Say in Foreign Policy. An increasing number of countries are incorporating advancement of gender equality into their foreign policy establishment and agendas. As of March, 32 countries had female foreign ministers, 25 had female ministers of defense, and several had ambassador-level positions with the explicit aim of promoting women's rights. Sweden and Mexico have instituted explicitly "feminist" foreign policies-which prioritize devoting resources to improving women's rights as well as ensuring representation in foreign and security institutions-with possibly more countries following suit in the near future.

Exercising Greater Choice. As women have gained opportunities, they are seeking roles in society beyond those traditionally afforded them. In Japan, women are consciously postponing or foregoing marriage, partly reflecting their dissatisfaction with enduring societal expectations that women will continue to perform the bulk of unpaid domestic chores even when they work outside the home. Moreover, labor force participation rates for women in Japan have increased during the past several decades. Similarly, Brazilian women have significantly increased their participation in the workforce since 1990, and they are prioritizing careers and other forms of personal goals over large families,
in part because of higher rates of education for women and greater urbanization.

Increasing Public Advocacy. Women have also used their greater political voice to shed new light on harassment, discrimination, and violence through social movements, such as #MeToo, India's #IWillGoOut for the unhindered right to go out in public, and Latin America's #NiUnaMenos, spotlighting violence against women, and through myriad marches, protests, and on-line campaigns. In early 2020, millions of Mexican women went on a national strike to protest gender violence-a move enabled by sympathetic employers and universities.

International Recognition of Women's Issues. During the past 25 years, countries have come together at the UN to pass several landmark agreements that protect and empower women, including the Beijing Platform for Action in 1995 with the goal of achieving legal gender equality, UN Security Council resolution 1325 on "Women and Peace and Security" affirming women's vital role in resolving conflicts and maintaining peace, and the UN Millennium Development Goals in 2000, which included "gender equality and empowerment of women and girls" as one of its tenets.

Agricultural Practices. Global water demand for agriculture-the single largest consumer of water-is projected to increase by 19 percent from current levels by 2050. By 2040, about 40 percent of all irrigated agriculture is expected to face extremely high water stress.

(Graphic 1: GENDER GAP TRENDS - Click image to enlarge)

Despite these initiatives and advances, progress toward gender equality is slowing in some areas. To some extent, this reflects the slowing gains in overall human development; for example, basic levels of education have largely been met but expanding access to secondary education is a more difficult challenge. The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated how quickly progress can be reversed for women, particularly because women have been more likely to stay at home to care for children. Although women are the primary producers of food in many countries, they have limited or no rights to land ownership in some parts of the world. Even where laws allow women to own land, such as in Kenya, no titles have been passed to women.

Physical Abuse Levels Remain High. Across all societies, women continue to face physical risk and dangers at home and work. Sexual violence-including at the hands of family members or domestic partners-remains a global scourge. A WHO study in 2020 estimates that more than one in four women have experienced physical or sexual violence form an intimate partner in their lifetime. The UN estimated in 2018 that globally, 137 women per day are killed by a partner or family member. Russia and Hungary, for example, have reduced protections for women, including decriminalizing domestic and sexual violence. Multiple studies also show that violence against women reduces economic productivity, reducing global output by as much as 4 percent, by one estimate. A number of recent studies indicate that globalization and expanding access to the Internet and social media have increased the sexual exploitation of girls and women.

Continued Discrimination in the Workplace. World Economic Forum data indicate that the global gender gap in both paid labor participation and wage equality has actually widened since 2017. A survey completed between 2013-2018 of 2,300 publically listed companies in 14 well-established industries across a range of sectors, including energy, materials, industrials, consumer products, utilities, and waste services, indicated that women hold only 13 percent of board seats. Globally, women are more women are more likely than men are to work in the precarious and ill-paid informal sector, far less likely to start their own businesses, and are underrepresented in STEM fields. One study in 2019 indicates that by 2030, an estimated 40-160 million women may need to transition into higher skilled roles; by comparison, 60-275 million men may need to transition.

Hurdles to Political Participation. Even with a dramatic rise in female legislators since the 1990s, the proportion worldwide is only about 25 percent. In some countries, women who seek or attain political office have to deal with threatened or actual violence, including murder, often deterring other women from striving for public office. Subordination of women to men regardless of educational level is enshrined in family law in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.

Deep-seated patriarchal attitudes worldwide, as well as some economic and demographic trends, are likely to remain a hindrance to gender equality during the next two decades. Although a Pew survey from 2018 indicates that attitudes are shifting-in a majority of countries surveyed, younger people are more likely to favor gender egalitarianism-which suggests that these attitudes may change over generational periods, about 50 percent of respondents to a UNDP survey in 2020 claimed that men make better political leaders and business executives.

Similarly, a Pew survey in 2020 across 34 countries representing views from each global region on gender equality reported that 40 percent of respondents stated that men should have preferential treatment when jobs are scarce, despite the vast majority of respondents stating it was important for women in their countries to have the same rights as men.
IMPACT OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON WOMEN'S INCOMES, EDUCATION, AND HEALTH
The global economic disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic had a greater effect on women because they tend to work in economic sectors hit hard by the pandemic, such as the hospitality industry and other service work. According to a poll conducted in late-2020 in 13 Latin American and Caribbean countries, female workers in the region were 44 percent more likely than men to lose their jobs at the onset of the pandemic. In 2020, women in Europe experienced a total wage bill loss of about 8.1 percent compared with just 5.4 percent for men. In addition, stay-at-home measures designed to stem the spread of COVID-19 combined with social expectations have frequently compelled women to give up paid work or put their educations on hold to care for their families and have put them at greater risk of domestic violence.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Bank, and the IMF project a robust global growth rate this year, albeit acknowledging considerable uncertainty regarding the global trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic during the next few years, but there are likely to be large regional variations that will affect women's ability to reenter the workforce in some countries. Developed economies probably are going to recover faster, while emerging markets and developing countries are unlikely to rebound to pre-COVID-19 GDP growth levels until after 2022, according to these projections. Studies of pre-COVID-19 recessions suggest that women have more difficulty than men regaining employment and recouping lost wages during a recovery.

The diversion of medical resources to deal with the outbreak probably has diminished women's access to health and reproductive services. In India, for example, medical services for women had to be re purposed to support COVID-19 efforts.

Role of Societal Structures and Traditions. Patriarchal family structures that remain the norm in several parts of the world often perpetuate gender inequality. Child brides-particularly prevalent in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia-are particularly powerless, cut off at an early age from educational and economic opportunities, and at high risk for both domestic violence and maternal injury and death. Many societies' acceptance or rejection of gender equality could hinge on whether they see it as an alien or Western value. Any values discussion may be further complicated by continued large migration flows across national borders, which will bring groups with widely varying views on gender equality into close proximity.

The ultimate in devaluation of women and girls in a society-denial of their right to live-is manifested by "femicide," "dowry deaths," "honor killings," and other assorted murders of females worldwide. The number of nations with skewed sex ratios as the result of the abortion of female fetuses and killings of newborn baby girls quadrupled between 1990 and 2016. Sex-selected abortion is most prevalent in China and India, although it is also common in the South Caucasus, Southeast Europe, and other countries with a preference for sons.

Impact of Economic and Demographic Trends. Pandemic-related economic problems will place fiscal constraints on many countries that will reduce public outlays for health, education, and infrastructure that women in many countries rely on. Developed countries may also react to the pandemic's disruption to supply chains by on-shoring or automating manufacturing, adding to strains on developing countries where women's rights face the greatest challenges. The growing burden of caring for increasingly aging populations, especially in Europe and East Asia, is also likely to fall disproportionately on women who provide most of the care in many societies.
WHAT COULD CREATE A DIFFERENT TRAJECTORY?

The Promise of Technology. Technological advances during the next two decades could provide opportunities for more women to improve their prospects for employment, attain higher levels of education, and advocate for their rights, if accompanied by a supportive societal and cultural environment. Social media platforms have been essential for connecting women with common concerns, promoting movements such as #MeToo and India's #IWillGoOut movement, and organizing massive demonstrations. As Internet access expands globally, more women and girls could have better educational opportunities and access to information. In addition, a growing number of e-commerce sites are providing a means for women entrepreneurs to gain access to financing and global markets. The UN, for example, is sponsoring an e-Trade for Women initiative that seeks to develop women digital entrepreneurs in developing countries.

A Pandemic Silver Lining? The COVID-19 pandemic may have the potential to catalyze societal shifts in attitudes toward gender equality during the next two decades. Some equality breakthroughs in the 20th century were catalyzed by global and regional cataclysms that reordered societies. For example, many Western women gained the vote as the result of the geopolitical and societal upheavals of World War I, and women entered the workforce in large numbers during World War II. Historians have also cited Rwandan women's progress following the 1994 genocide, which forced dramatic shifts in women's roles in that country, including gender parity in its legislature and the right of women to own land and work in paid employment.

In the COVID-19 era, it became apparent that a large number of jobs viewed as "essential"-from medical professionals to grocery store employees-are performed by women in frequently perilous conditions. As a result, women-including those in traditionally low-status care work-could gain a new platform for demanding a greater voice, respect, and financial reward.

GENDER EQUALITY IMPLICATIONS FOR ECONOMICS, GOVERNANCE, AND CONFLICT
Gender equality has global strategic implications with a body of scholarship demonstrating that treatment of women in a society is a leading indicator of that society's ability to develop, democratize, and exist peacefully with its neighbors. This is an area of ongoing research and debate. The most empirical evidence is in the area of economics.

Economic Prosperity: There are long-recognized links between increases in female autonomy (e.g. freedom to delay marriage and to work outside the home) and economic prosperity going back centuries. The economic growth of China and South Korea was preceded by a rise in female autonomy in the 1960s and 1970s, whereas gender inequality has been associated with lower GDP growth in other developing countries during the last few decades. Prosperity in more equal societies is due in part to women's investing more of their earnings in their families and communities than men typically invest. In addition, international financial institutions and investors have found an inverse correlation between return on investment and high levels of gender-based violence and discrimination in a society.

Democratic Governance: A body of scholarship indicates that patriarchal families that allow women little say over the number of children they produce consistently undermine the ability of a society to form lasting democracies. For example, patriarchal values such as conformity, deference to hierarchy, self-censorship, and suspicion of outsiders are much more amenable to authoritarian forms of governance. In addition, societies with high population growth- and by extension more youthful populations- are statistically more prone to failed democratization attempts than societies with a higher median age.

Instability and Conflict: Societies where violence against women is entrenched are more prone to instability and conflict. Habitual violence in the home conditions those who witness it, such as children, to see violence as the means for dealing with differences, whether ethnic, religious, cultural, racial, or ideological.

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Office of the Director of National Intelligence - Global Trends

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DEEPER LOOKS This paper was produced by the National Intelligence Council's Strategic Futures Group in consultation with outside experts and Intelligence Community analysts to help inform the integrated Global Trends product, which published in March 2021. However, the analysis does not reflect official US Government policy, the breadth of intelligence sources, or the full range of perspectives within the US Intelligence Community.

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The second topic I've selected is gender inequality I selected this topic due to so many people's opinions to due to "mens academic attaining more then women" why do people believe that men can do so much more then women we are all equal and the same there is not more or less then what we can do just because of our gender.

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Gender Inequality: The amount of changes that have been made throughout time with the gender between a female and a male, changes have been made but not everything is completely equal.

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For years women have defended the rights & multiple movements, fighting for there equality to address the issues of inequality for women who did not all have the equal rights or the privileges there are now. There are still times when women still don't receive equality it must be spoken on.

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If you defend human rights, you defend women’s’ rights.

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Across the globe, many women and girls still face discrimination because of their sex and gender.

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Women's Rights: This is a very opinionated topic it speaks on women who have fought against what someone's opinions has to say for there own freedom.

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This topic has conducted a new study within a development of women having a higher rate of violence happening within there communities the studies & rates have found much more percentages "90 per cent of women in these countries feel that violence breaks their resolve to join politics. From our comprehensive review of laws on violence against women, it is clear that none of the three countries has legislation that deals strictly with offenders to prevent violence against women in politics. We know that where laws are in place, prevalence tends to be lower and fewer people think that violence against women in justifiable." This issue has an impact because this act will repeating leading that it's okay to let these actions happen when it's not.

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Violence against women in politics is rampant in South Asia according to a new study conducted by the Centre for Social Research and UN Women. The study, ‘Violence against Women in Politics’ revealed that the insufficient implementation of laws, lack of support from police and judiciary, the socio-economic divide and current power structures are the major reasons for violence.

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Violence: Women's violence is a very harsh topic that has been spoken on but is still not completely a fixed situation there are women who still do not feel safe.

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Over time, the most profound statements have had shifts these issues have led to an increased educationally, socially, political, etc.. which leads to impact changes, The public opinion generally views these evolving roles as beneficial for both women and families, but acknowledge the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in the pursuit of greater gender equality.

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Impact statement: This statement has stated throughout time the power of women has had a huge increase it has had it's moments for the positive but there has also been negative impacts such as women not receiving inequality or the same treatment.

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Analyzing throughout time, in most families there are women with increasingly pursue education and careers, family roles have become more flexible and collaborative. Traditional models where women were confined to caregiving and men were the sole providers are giving way to shared responsibilities in both income generation and domestic life. This shift promotes greater involvement of fathers in caregiving and encourages more equitable partnerships.

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Authors Prof. Bilal Ahmed Department of English Language and Literature, Government College University, Lahore Abstract:

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The Dynamics of Family Structures in Modern Society: Shifting Patterns and Evolving Definitions | Liberal Journal of Language & Literature Review

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This article examines the diverse and dynamic nature of family structures in contemporary society. Moving beyond the traditional nuclear family model, it explores the increasing prevalence of single-parent households, blended families, same-sex couples, extended families, and chosen families. The paper analyzes the sociocultural and economic factors driving these transformations, including rising divorce rates, increased female workforce participation, evolving gender roles, and changing LGBTQ+ rights. It further investigates the implications of these shifts for social policy, child development, and individual well-being. Ultimately, the article argues for a broader and more inclusive understanding of family, recognizing the diverse forms of love, commitment, and support that define this fundamental unit of society.

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Shifting in a family Dynamic: When providing for a family most women feel as to taking control in the house work or child care this has caused many women's education & career to be thrown away due to not receiving the proper correct amount of time split between the spouse.

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Through time women's ageing & women's society has had a huge impact throughout all this time and years. Women's contribution to society has been recognized throughout the age, the cultural, economically, and technological shifts have continually redefined their roles. Just being able to experience the change and different past life's we've seen throughout all this time change.

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The Evolution of Women’s Roles, Power, and Progress

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For my third post I have decided to select the topic on Ageing I selected this because I have my own questions and opinions on this topic is my opinion that there has been changes but there should be more added on to that. A question I had was why didn't women have a chance or opportunity to have more freedom sooner?

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Ageing: The experience of seeing women throughout the time periods of ageing how much things have changed.

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Many women have experienced different types of assault due to an abusive relationships, r*pe, being trafficked, there are just many different situations that could lead to women or girls being assaulted.

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HUD.gov / U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)

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Expand All

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is a federal law that, in part, provides housing protections for people applying for or living in units subsidized by the federal government and who have experienced domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking, to help keep them safe and reduce their likelihood of experiencing homelessness.

Under VAWA, someone who has experienced domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and/or stalking (VAWA violence/abuse):

Cannot be denied admission to or assistance under a HUD-subsidized or assisted unit or program because of the VAWA violence/abuse committed against them.

Cannot be evicted from a HUD-subsidized unit nor have their assistance terminated because of the VAWA violence/abuse committed against them.

Cannot be denied admission, evicted, or have their assistance terminated for reasons related to the VAWA violence/abuse, such as having an eviction record, criminal history, or bad credit history.

Must have the option to stay in their HUD-subsidized housing, even if there has been criminal activity directly related to the VAWA violence/abuse.

Can request an emergency transfer from the housing provider for safety reasons related to the VAWA violence/abuse committed against them.

Must be allowed to move with continued assistance, if the survivor has a Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher.

Must be able to provide proof to the housing provider by self-certifying using the HUD VAWA Self-certification (Form HUD-5382), and not be required to provide more proof unless the housing provider has conflicting information about the violence/abuse.

Must receive HUD's Notice of VAWA Housing Rights (Form HUD-5380) and HUD's VAWA Self-certification Form (Form HUD-5382) from the housing provider, when they are denied admission to a HUD-subsidized unit or HUD program, when they are admitted to a HUD-subsidized unit or HUD program, and when they receive a notice of eviction from a HUD-subsidized unit or notice of termination from a HUD program.

Has a right to strict confidentiality of information regarding their status as a survivor.

Can request a lease bifurcation from the owner or landlord to remove the perpetrator from the lease or unit, and if the housing provider bifurcates, it must be done consistent with applicable federal, state, or local laws and the requirements of the HUD housing program.

Cannot be coerced, intimated, threatened, or retaliated against by HUD-subsidized housing providers for seeking or exercising VAWA protections.

Has the right to seek law enforcement or emergency assistance for themselves or others without being penalized by local laws or policies for these requests or because they were victims of criminal activity.

VAWA's housing protections, in part, are available to someone who has previously or is currently experiencing domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, or stalking. The survivor does NOT have to be married to, related to, or living with the perpetrator to be protected by VAWA. It does not matter how long ago the survivor experienced the violence. A survivor's immigration status in itself does not impact a survivor's right to VAWA's housing protections.

VAWA's housing protections, in part, apply to a survivor if they are applying for or living in shelter, transitional housing, or permanent housing that is subsidized by a federal homeless assistance program or federal affordable housing program. See below for a list of HUD programs covered by VAWA.
VAWA protects survivors, regardless of their sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation AND regardless of the sex, gender identity or sexual orientation of the person who caused harm.

VAWA applies to these HUD programs:

VAWA's housing safeguards apply to survivors of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and/or stalking. These forms of violence (collectively called "VAWA violence/abuse") are defined below.

Domestic Violence includes felony or misdemeanor crimes committed by a current or former spouse or intimate partner of the victim under the family or domestic violence laws of the jurisdiction receiving grant funding and, in the case of victim services, includes the use or attempted use of physical abuse or sexual abuse, or a pattern of any other coercive behavior committed, enabled, or solicited to gain or maintain power and control over a victim, including verbal, psychological, economic, or technological abuse that may or may not constitute criminal behavior, by a person who -

Dating violence means violence committed by a person-

Sexual Assault is any nonconsensual sexual act proscribed by Federal, tribal, or State law, including when the victim lacks capacity to consent.

Stalkingmeans engaging in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to- (A) fear for his or her safety or the safety of others; or (B) suffer substantial emotional distress.

If you believe your VAWA rights have been violated, you can visit this link to file a complaint with HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO). You can also find out more about the complaint process. These sites provide information in multiple languages and include instructions for filing a complaint online on HUD's website and by email, mail, or telephone.

Note: HUD is currently updating its complaint form to include VAWA protections. However, you may still use the current complaint form to file a VAWA complaint. On the complaint form, please explain in the narrative section why you believe your VAWA rights were violated.

HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) works to eliminate housing discrimination and promote civil rights and economic opportunity through housing. FHEO enforces VAWA and other fair housing and civil rights laws, and one of its roles is to investigate complaints of housing discrimination.

It is unlawful to retaliate against someone who has made a complaint or participated in any manner in a proceeding involving HUD's complaint process or investigation, or who has reported a discriminatory practice to a housing provider or other authority.

For more information on VAWA and Fair Housing, see here.

VAWA Statute

VAWA Regulations

VAWA Notices and Guidance

Press Release: HUD Announces New Resources for Advancing Housing Protections for Survivors of Domestic Violence, Dating Violence, Sexual Assault, and Stalking (February 1, 2023)

HUD, Federal Register Notice: The Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization Act of 2022: Overview of Applicability to HUD (January 4, 2023)

HUD, SNAPs, Memo to Emergency Solutions Grant Program Recipients and Continuum of Care Program Recipients, Housing Provisions of the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization Act of 2022 (June 28, 2023)

HUD, FHEO, Memo: Guidance on the Implementation of FHEO Notice FHEO-2023-1 (March 27, 2023)

HUD, Multifamily Housing, Memo: Housing Provisions of the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization Act of 2022 (March 10, 2023)

HUD, PIH, Letter to Public Housing Authority Executives: Housing Provisions of the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization Act of 2022 (March 3, 2023)

HUD, HOPWA, VAWA Letter Regarding Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS (HOPWA) Grantees and Project Sponsors (February 14, 2023)

HUD, FHEO 2023-01: Notice to Public Regarding FHEO Enforcement Authority and Procedures: Violence Against Women Act 2022 (VAWA) (January 20, 2023)

HUD, Federal Register Notice: 60-Day Notice of Proposed Information Collection: Implementation of the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013, OMB Control No.: 2577-0286 (November 4, 2022)

HUD, Notice H 2017-05 Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization Act of 2013 - Additional Guidance for Multifamily Owners and Management Agents (June 30, 2017)

HUD, PIH-2017-08 (HA) Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 Guidance (May 19, 2017)

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The Voluntary Agreement stems from a limited compliance review initiated by HUD in November 2022 under Section 504 for Greenbriar Apartments, a 208-unit development in Tennessee owned by Alco Greenbriar Partners, LP, whose general partner is Alco Properties, Inc. The property is managed by Alco Management, Inc., which manages over 50 multifamily properties throughout the Southeast. The property receives Project Based Rental Assistance through HUD Multifamily Housing.

Following the limited compliance review, the Letter of Findings of Noncompliance was issued in April 2023, describing the housing providers' effective denial of multiple reasonable accommodation or modification requests. HUD also uncovered instances of VAWA noncompliance involving households that experienced incidents of sexual assault and/or domestic violence. Two tenants requested VAWA emergency transfers and in both instances, the housing providers failed to provide the transfer or take any additional action needed to process the requests. Under the Voluntary Conciliation Agreement, the housing providers agree to pay the aggrieved parties $50,000 in monetary compensation. The housing providers will also amend its reasonable accommodation transfer log, revise the transfer policy, revise its VAWA policies, construct or convert ten UFAS-accessible units, with an additional four units for the hearing and visually impaired and accessible common areas, designate a VAWA Coordinator, respond to VAWA-related grievances and transfer requests within ten days, and attend VAWA training.

Read the Conciliation Agreement VAWA Memo Letter of Findings

HUD's investigation found that a tenant who had a Housing Choice Voucher alleged that a Public Housing Agency in Nevada ("PHA") and its Housing Specialist violated the complainant's rights under VAWA when the complainant requested to relocate mid-lease as an emergency transfer after being stalked by a former partner. The complainant alleged that the housing provider demanded confusing and contradictory documentation that it was not permitted to request under VAWA, threatened to revoke the complainant's voucher, denied her request to extend her voucher, and stopped paying its portion of the rent while the complainant prepared to move to protect her safety. HUD's investigation indicated that the PHA's policies and procedures did not comply with VAWA, including policies for documenting someone's status as a VAWA survivor in general and, specifically, when an emergency transfer is requested. The PHA also lacked an emergency transfer plan, as required by VAWA. The agreement requires the housing provider to adopt and implement policies that comply with VAWA and will protect the VAWA rights of its applicants and residents, including that the PHA has an Emergency Transfer Plan that will allow survivors who qualify to move quickly without losing their assistance, to hire outside experts to provide VAWA training to staff, and to pay the complainant a monetary settlement.

A woman filed a complaint alleging that a housing management company in CA, which is a recipient of funds under the HOME Investment Partnerships Program ("HOME") and Low-Income Housing Tax Credits ("LIHTC"), and a property manager violated her rights under VAWA by denying her application due to a history of violations of the terms of previous rental agreements that were related to her status as a survivor of dating violence. Although the housing providers denied that the tenant disclosed her status as a dating violence survivor, they acknowledged that they failed to accompany the denial letter with any information about her rights under VAWA, as required by law, and that they did not advise her about how she might appeal the denial. Under the terms of the agreement, the housing providers will pay the complainant a monetary settlement, place her on the top of the waitlist for the next available unit at two properties, notify her in writing when such a unit becomes available, revise their policies and procedures to comply with VAWA and protect the VAWA rights of applicants and tenants, establish a VAWA Rights Coordinator to handle VAWA matters and compliance, and require their employees to complete VAWA training annually.

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Help for Survivors Disclaimer

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EXIT SITE Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) What's New Frequently Asked Questions VAWA Forms VAWA Cases VAWA Trainings VAWA 2022 Listening Sessions Program Office Resources Help for Survivors What's New Press Release: HUD and Tennessee Housing Providers Reach Agreement on Disability and VAWA Noncompliance (January 25, 2024) Press Release: Statement from HUD Secretary Marcia L.

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For my fourth post I decided to select the topic on assault I selected this topic due many different types of assaults there's many ways where a female could be harmed by this act. My question is why hasn't there been a change or improvement within this?

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Assault: Many women have to go through being assaulted there are many different types of assault and it can be led on to different ways to points when women don't notice until its too late.

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“Almost 35% of women experienced physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime, and over 600 million women live in countries where domestic violence is still not a crime.”

This topic has a very strong effect it's been "getting out of hand." This situation must be taken into effect and taken care of immediately.

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Violence against Women in Politics a Growing Problem

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Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a leading national research university and the state of New Jersey’s preeminent, comprehensive public institution of higher education. Established in 1766, the university is the eighth oldest higher education institution in the United States.

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Harassment: Most women experience harassment, similar to assault there are different ways to be harassed. It can just happen out on the street when you trying to take a walk or can be experienced very traumatically there has not been a serious law taken upon this action.

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Article argues the gender pay gap is deeply intertwined with class dynamics. It also finds that in high-income households, women earn 25% less than male partners—wider than the 4% gap seen in low-income households.

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The latest Money articles from Marie Claire.

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For my fifth post I have decided to select the topic equal pay I've selected this due to the increased amount of payments women have received this is due to women's genders my question is why does society believe there should be different amounts of receiving payment? Why does it matter weather or not what gender you are does not define how much or little you should be getting paid.

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Equal pay: In the industry world reality brings us to women and men not getting paid equal amounts many women have argued on receiving less to there co worker just due not because of the work gap but due to being the opposite gender.

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Highlights that mothers often suffer time deficits and stress due to unequal childcare and domestic responsibilities. Often women explain that they are used to behavior simple just due to there gender that they are expected to do everything it calls for systemic shifts in parental leave, flexible work, and societal norms.

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Australian women are doing 50% more housework than men. It’s creating ‘volcanic levels of resentment’

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Australia and New Zealand rank third highest globally for unpaid domestic work done by women, according to UN data from 2023

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Family Household: Women often feel pinned to take the responsibility of taking part in house work & childcare due to their gender. Most times women have explained that they feel this way due to their spouse not taking part in taking care of the home or splitting the chores evenly.

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Explains a brief prompt of women contributing most to society when they raise their children full-time while the main role of men is to "protect and provide" and this is the way it's always been. That, at least, is the impression given by current trends.

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Women contribute most to society when they raise their children full-time, while the main role of men is to "protect and provide"-and this is the way it's always been. That, at least, is the impression given by current trends, from "tradwives" to "alpha" males to, even, proclamations made by members of the Trump administration themselves (a mention of "childless cat ladies" comes to mind).

"Just to be sexist, and put it in sexist terms, women think of a man as a provider," Joe Rogan said on his wildly popular podcast in 2023. "There's this, like, evolutionary aspect." In March 2025, parenting author Erica Komisar argued that mothers should stay at home for at least the first three years of their children's lives, commenting on The Diary of a CEO podcast that, "from an evolutionary perspective," this type of caregiving was standard.

The problem? It's untrue. As the evolutionary anthropologist Sarah Hrdy put it to me, "Except for blips in history, men have never really been breadwinners, supporting a woman at home."

Even now, globally, "the male breadwinner-female homemaker division of labour is... unusual," writes evolutionary behavioral scientist Rebecca Sear. "Childcare is not the exclusive preserve of women in most societies and, even more so, productive labour is not the exclusive preserve of men."

That includes during our hunter-gatherer days, which account for some 95% of human evolutionary history. The idea of "man the hunter, woman the caregiver," widely popularized by (male) anthropologists in the 1960s, is, Hrdy notes, a massively "mistaken trope."

There's growing evidence that, in many hunter-gatherer cultures, women hunted. How common this was is debated, but it may not matter-because either way, women were key in provisioning food for their community. In fact, in several foraging societies in sub-Saharan Africa, often considered the closest likenesses to our shared evolutionary past, women's average contribution to their community's calorie intake range between 60 and 80%. These societies could survive without the sporadic acquisition of meat, anthropologists note. But they could not survive without the tubers and other plants reliably, and consistently, dug up or picked by women.

It's true that women have historically combined caregiving and work duties, especially in infancy: think foraging with a baby on the back. But they also had a lot of help. Take central Africa's Efe society in the Ituri Rainforest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At 18 weeks old, Efe infants already spend 60% of their time being cared for by someone other than their mother; they are passed from one caregiver to the next more than eight times per hour. While the Efe are on the extreme end, "alloparents"-nonbiological parents-are on hand across foraging societies, so a mother can focus on acquiring food, water, or firewood. As Hrdy argued 16 years ago in her book Mothers and Others, communal care may have been the very foundation for how modern humans came to be. And it didn't just mean mothers and fathers had help caring for their children-it also meant they had help provisioning them. In other words, the idea that any family unit had to rely entirely on a mother and father in isolation for breadwinning (never mind a father alone) is a myth.

What changed? First, the move to farming. As nomadic societies settled and began to grow their own food, the average number of children per mother rose sharply, even doubling, tethering women more to caretaking responsibilities. Divisions of labor sharpened, with women's work increasingly taking place within the home. Then came Christianity, with its Biblical injunctions that man must provide for their families or be "worse than an infidel." (Women, meanwhile, should be "keepers at home.")

Still, more women labored in farming communities than you might think. In medieval Europe, "peasant women worked alongside men doing almost exactly the same jobs in the fields," medieval history Eleanor Janega noted previously. In cities, they worked as servants, nannies, craftspeople, or bookkeepers for the family business.

Read More: Medieval Women Were a Vital Part of the Workforce. We Can Learn from Them

Even as the Industrial Revolution turned society upside-down, women continued to work outside of the home. (And, it goes without saying, then, as now, they worked hard inside the home, too-whether by taking on paid work, like sewing, or taking lodgers, or handling unpaid domestic duties.) At factories, they were seen as such attractive employees, often because owners could pay them lower wages than men, that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to limit women's work hours. Female employment also was kept down through policies like "marriage bars," which banned married women from paid work. Even so, women often sought paid work outside of the home. By 1900, the census reported that 1 in 5 U.S. workers were women. Yet actual numbers were likely far higher, given that paid work was narrowly defined to be work that, among other criteria, someone chiefly depended for support-unlikely for many married women-not to mention that the stigma against working women meant that few families were likely to report this work accurately to a census taker.

Meanwhile, women educated themselves in great numbers: by 1930, around 4 in 10 students graduating with a bachelor's or master's degree were female.

So while World War Two's "Rosie the Riveter" might have been new, "Rosie the worker," even "Rosie the provider," was not. When the war ended, considerable cultural, economic, even legal efforts were put into convincing women that they should stay at home. Yet women still worked. Even through the "happy housewife" decade of the 1950s, female labor participation continued to rise.

Today, two-thirds of U.S. mothers work outside the home, in almost equal measures across party lines.

"We developed this expectation of 'man as breadwinner' very recently in our evolution. And it's bad for everyone," says Melissa Hogenboom, author of the forthcoming book Breadwinners. "It is terrible for female equality. But it's bad for men too. The pressure for fathers to work long hours is harmful for their relationships, their children and their marriages-and for their mental health."

By foreclosing on the possibility that men can be equal, never mind primary, caregivers, our "man the provider" trope has also done fathers a disservice. Much has been made of recent findings that mothers' brains change in pregnancy. But, as Hrdy explores in her latest book, Father Time, men's brains and hormones also change-and the more involved a father is, the more pronounced these changes are.

That we aren't tapping into this caregiving potential of men is hurting them. "It's no accident that a lot of men feel unneeded, cast aside, that three out of five deaths of despair from drug addiction and suicide are men," Hrdy says. "There is a vast untapped potential for caring in men, and by expressing it, they may find new sources of meaning."

To be clear, there's absolutely nothing wrong with a mother raising children full-time; for many families, it can be ideal. Implying it should be the standard for all because it is the way it "always" was, however, is wrong-literally, and because it holds everyone back from their full potential: both women and men.

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It's hurting both women and men, writes Amanda Ruggeri.

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Roles: Women's opinions to contribute to there "roles" women often feel to having to provide the home work, organization, etc due to mens work often being to protect and provide.

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This piece explores the resurgence of “weaponized incompetence,” where one partner feigns ineptitude to avoid household responsibilities. It shows how this behavior disproportionately affects women many of whom are increasingly educated, independent and how this imbalance in domestic and emotional labor is contributing to marital dissatisfaction and even divorce. The article offers perspectives from therapists and marriage experts on navigating these dynamics.

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Weaponized incompetence is back, and it’s driving modern women out of their marriages

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Therapists and divorce lawyers say weaponized incompetence is reshaping modern marriages between men and women — and men need to learn to catch up.

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Marriage Roles: The dropped behavior of married couples on how responsibilities and actions can reflect very very similar to women's roles on being pinned towards certain responsibilities that are more so targeted to "women's jobs."

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The International Labor Organization showing that 9.6% of female dominated jobs are expected to be transformed by AI, compared to just 3.5% of male dominated roles. It underscores the need for governments, employers, and organizations to proactively plan how AI can enhance job quality rather than simply replace human labor.

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Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise

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Kranzberg's First Law of Technology

The release of generative artificial intelligence products such as ChatGPT, Bing Chat, Bard, Midjourney and others - which allow anyone to use prompts to generate text, images, music or video for business or personal use - have democratized AI. By doing so, generative AI has become a game changer for many industries, offering new ways to automate tasks, increase productivity and improve quality.

While this technology will create new job opportunities and a growth in GDP, the exposure of generative AI to automate tasks in existing jobs will have an impact on those occupations as well. These include changes in job tasks and professional roles, the need to learn new skills to remain competitive and, unfortunately, the loss of jobs.

It may also mean, however, that workers will be freed up to be more efficient and creative, thus increasing both productivity and quality. New jobs will be created as well, and workers may find more meaning in their work if AI allows tasks that are time-consuming to be automated. Therefore, "impact" should not be thought of strictly as a negative, since there will also be positive changes in these job categories.

This analysis aims to analyze whether the potential impact of generative AI on jobs will impact men and women differently.

Main Finding

The main finding of this analysis is that eight out of 10 women (58.87 million) in the U.S. workforce are in occupations highly exposed to generative AI automation (more than 25% of the occupational tasks) vs. six out of 10 men (48.62 million). Overall, 21% more women are exposed to AI automation than men even though men outnumber women in the workforce. This is due to the affected occupations being populated by more women than men. "Highly exposed" means 25%-50% of the tasks in that occupation could be automated by generative AI.

This finding was determined using Goldman Sachs' "The Potentially Large Effects of Artificial Intelligence on Economic Growth" as a base. The report identified 15 occupations that would be most affected. Within those occupations, the total number of employees and the gender breakdown determined the total number of men and women exposed to generative AI automation.

Analysis and Detailed Findings

The Goldman Sachs report had the following key takeaways:

About two-thirds of jobs will be impacted by generative AI. Based on the employment share of those occupations and that 25%-50% percent of tasks in those jobs are exposed to automation, it is projected that up to a quarter of the work tasks being performed today could be automated by generative AI.

Taking estimates from U.S. and European analysis worldwide, generative AI may potentially replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs.

However, the automation of those tasks is not the only potential outcome. If history is a guide, these job losses will be counterbalanced by the formation of new positions, and new types of jobs are likely to appear.

These changes may also result in significant increases in annual global GDP, up to 7%, with this increase in economic activity generating demand for new goods and services that is likely to spur job creation.

More specifically, the Goldman Sachs report projected that the following 15 occupations would be the most affected, with 25%-50% of the tasks in those occupations potentially exposed to automation via generative AI (see Figure 1). As you can see, these are primarily knowledge worker positions. Generative AI will have much less impact on jobs that require physical labor as, at this point in time, it lacks ability to perform that type of work.

Figure 1: Occupations and Task Exposure to Automation via Generative AIMethodology: Gender Breakdown Analysis

Using the Goldman Sachs list of the top 15 job categories impacted by generative AI (above), we then analyzed the gender breakdown for these occupations based on the U.S. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics Report. These data come from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the source used in the Goldman Sachs report to determine the employment share of each occupation. The gender breakdown of the total of all the top 15 occupations were then calculated to determine the impact of generative AI by gender.

Detailed Findings

Figure 1 below shows the female-to-male percentages for the 15 occupations, ranked in order of number of employees in each occupation, largest to smallest. By looking at the total at the bottom of the chart, one can see there are significantly more women in these occupations (58.87M) than men (48.62M) even though there are more men (84.21M) in the workforce than women (74.08M). Thus almost 80% of women in the workforce are in occupations exposed to automation via generative AI vs. 58% of men.

Figure 2: Detailed View of Gender Breakdown of 15 Occupations Most Exposed to Automation from Generative AI
Gender breakdown of jobs most heavily impacted by AI
The reason more women than men are exposed to AI automation is straightforward: A higher percentage of working women are in white-collar jobs (~70%) vs. blue-collar ones (~30%) while for men the ratio is roughly 50/50.

Implications

As discussed earlier, "impacted by generative AI" may mean positive or negative changes for society and workers. For society, it may bring economic growth as well as societal disruption. Whether the changes are good or ill for individual workers will depend on their occupation, firm, individual capabilities and ability to adapt. Some will adjust better than others. There will be winners and losers.

For every knowledge worker, there are some skills and attitudes that will enable them to adapt and thrive in the coming AI era. The first is a need to gain generative AI capabilities. As the saying goes: "You won't be replaced by AI. You will be replaced by someone who knows AI." Cognitive workers need to become familiar and then fluent in using generative AI tools and applying them in their current jobs to become more productive, knowledgeable and creative. They should also remain well informed about AI trends and how these tools are being used in their professions, industries and firms so they can find additional means of improving their value to their organizations.

Also, as New York Times columnist David Brooks put it, "In the age of AI, major in being human." There are things humans can do that AI cannot do well or at all. These include taking the initiative, discovering problems, influencing others, developing creative solutions and navigating organizational politics - all things that are crucial to getting things done in organizations.

Lastly, resiliency and adaptability will be crucial. AI will move ever faster and disrupt both the workplace and society. Being able to cope with and respond positively to those changes will set one apart from the rest.

What should society do if the impact of AI in the workplace falls more on women than men is a question we must grapple with as we see the changes it brings. As discussed, the results will be a mix of positives and negatives, and at this point, it is difficult to say what the balance of those will be. While that may not be a satisfactory answer, we will have to adjust as the effects of generative AI develop.

Considerations and Limitations

The record adoption of ChatGPT, followed by a proliferation of other generative AI, has been both very recent and striking. It is still early in our understanding of how these products will change our future. This fact, compounded by the release of a wider array of increasingly powerful products on a seemingly weekly basis, means any analysis of their future impact must be taken as only an early projection of what may happen.

Secondly, the occupation categories are quite broad. Within those job categories, some specific subcategories will be more affected than others. Those subcategories may have different male-to-female ratios than others. For example, in the legal profession, 52.6% of employees are women. However, the paralegal subcategory, which will be more likely to be impacted than other legal subcategories, is composed of 83.2% women. Therefore, future research at the subcategory level would be useful in determining impact at a more detailed level.

Data for this report were compiled by Paige Smith, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School MBA candidate.

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Will Generative AI Disproportionately Affect the Jobs of Women? - Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise

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Generative AI such as ChatGPT holds the potential to alter many kinds of work, but analysis of a new report shows the occupations most likely to be affected are populated by more women than men.

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Impact on Womens Job's: An impact on women receiving changes but along with change not everything comes out to a good effect, Womens jobs have changed the increased education within Women but with men or the power of AI it can replace the powerful empowerment of women very easily.

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This article examines how the COVID‑19 pandemic initially pushed many women especially those with care giving responsibilities out of the workforce. However, the rise of remote and hybrid work models has significantly contributed to women’s labor force participation rebounding.

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Hybrid work is about more than just flexibility for women returning from career breaks—it’s a ‘great enabler’ for their professional lives

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Women are more likely to take career breaks. Now, hybrid work is helping them return.

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Workforce: Along with the impact of women's jobs the workforce of women has had a high promote rate after COVID 19 it pushed the education of women more then ever discovering new ways and treatments to treat the sickness.

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1. What has been the impact of shifting gender roles on the division of labor and family dynamics in a dual-income household over the past three decades?

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In what ways has the portrayal of women in media evolved over the past 50 years, and how has this shift influenced societal perceptions of gender roles?