Afghanistan Shows What Investing in Women’s Education – Or Divesting – Can Do to An Economy

My piece in The Conversation last week reported on new research shows that Afghan women earned 13% more for every additional year of schooling they received after the Taliban fell in 2001. That progress is now in peril.

While the overall average return on investment in education remains low in Afghanistan, it is high for women. When using the compulsory schooling reform as an instrument, we get a causal estimate of the returns to schooling. This is higher than the global average of 9% for return on investment in education.

This is from joint work with World Bank education expert Raja Bentaouet Kattan and American University economist Rafiuddin Najam. Together, we analyzed the economic benefit of this societal change.

However, for every additional day that the ban on women’s education persists, generations fall further behind, losses compound, and the dreams of millions of children and businesswomen become further out of reach.

Read the full Research Brief here.

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Sample press coverage: Houston Chronicle, Macau Daily Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Post-Intelligencer.