WUNRN
GENDER EQUALITY ASSESSMENT – BENEFITS & COSTS OF GENDER EQUALITY TARGETS FOR THE POST-2015 DEVELOPMENT AGENDA
http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/post-2015-consensus/genderequality
Post-2015 Consensus: Gender Equality Assessment
Summary Of Targets From The Paper
Gender
Equality Targets |
Benefit
For Every Dollar Spent |
Improve access to sexual and reproductive health for all
women. |
$120 |
Improve women’s access to economic opportunities. |
$7 |
Increase the number of years of education attained by
women. |
$5 |
Ensure equal rights of women to own and inherit property,
sign a contract, register a business and open a bank account. |
Likely To
Be High |
Increase women’s political representation. |
Likely To
Be High |
Reduce violence against girls and women. |
Unknown But Costs Likely To Be High, and Effectiveness
Questionable |
Reduce child marriage. |
Unknown
But Costs Likely To Be High, and Effectiveness Questionable |
Summary
The Current Situation and the MDG’s, What Has Been Achieved?
Women in the developing world have the highest incidence
of poverty, poor health, lack of education, unequal rights and violence. Some
of the Millennium Development Goals were either directly targeted at women, or
were targeted at reducing gender differences. However, although remarkable
progress has been made, there is still a long way to go.
Education
The main target of the third MDG was to eliminate gender
disparity in primary and secondary education. Good progress has been made in
the primary sector but access to secondary and university-level education still
remains highly unequal. Differences in enrollment in primary education have
decreased in all regions, but Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North
Africa are still lagging behind. The contributory factors are poverty, living
in rural areas and early marriage.
Employment
The first MDG targets full and productive employment for
all, including women, but gender disparity has not decreased much, particularly
in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. Women are also more likely to
be in less secure and lower paid work.
Maternal Health
The fifth goal aims to reduce maternal mortality by three
quarters and provide universal access to reproductive health care. Antenatal
care provision has improved, but access to contraception has not. Maternal
mortality has decreased but is still extremely high in South-Asia and
Sub-Saharan Africa; there were still an estimated 287,000 deaths worldwide in
2010.
Water and Sanitation
The sixth goal aimed to halve the number of people
without access to clean water and sanitation, which would be of particular
benefit to women, who carry most of the burden of fetching water. Access to
water has improved considerably, although more than 30% of people in
sub-Saharan Africa still lack this.
The Post-2015 Goals
Education can have effects on labor force participation,
health, child care, prevent early marriage and maybe even reduce violence
against women, but for the post-2015 targets more dimensions of gender equality
should be considered. The HLP proposals include four objectives to empower
girls and women and achieve gender equality, which are considered below. When
estimating benefit-cost ratios, we have to be aware that they can vary between
countries and that both positive and negative externalities can have an impact.
Another potential drawback of the use of economic analysis in the area of human
rights is the ethical implications of quantifying issues such as women’s lives
or wellbeing.
Some of the goals would require changes in laws that
would not be very costly to implement; these include, for example, increasing
female political participation or ensuring that women and men have the same
rights to hold property, open a bank account or register a business. Other
goals are also really important, but we still do not know the benefits
and costs of attaining them. The recommendation of this paper would be to
invest in programs improving women’s education and economic opportunities,
given that this will also be a way to reduce child marriage.
The Goals That Have Been Proposed: An Evaluation of The Costs and Benefits
(when available) of Different Policies to Attain Them
Prevent and Eliminate All Forms of Violence Against Girls and Women
Violence against women is widespread and persistent. This
includes rape, domestic violence, violence outside the household, and “honor” killings
all of which affect women of all ages and irrespective of their socio-economic
status. Sex-selective abortions are a form of violence against women and have
increased in some countries. Women are also likely to suffer more from violence
in conflict and crisis situations. Reporting levels are often low because they
are much more likely to be reported as empowerment increases.
There is also very little evidence on how to reduce this
violence, and program benefits can be difficult to estimate because of the
long-lasting damage done, the severe psychological impact and effect on
education and economic activities.
Domestic violence is widespread in all regions, but
especially high in Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean and South-East Asia.
Sexual violence inflicted by non-partners, very prevalent in times of conflict,
is very high in Africa and the Americas. Rates of violence in high income
countries also seem very high, but this is likely to be because women are much
more likely to report incidents. Data from different countries may therefore
not be directly comparable.
Despite the high incidence, there are few programs whose
main goal is reduction of violence against women. But other programs can have a
beneficial effect. For example, a life skills and vocational training program
in Uganda that took place in after-school clubs decreased the proportion of
girls who reported having had sexual relationships without their consent. The
program aimed to empower girls, and a reduction in violence is just one
dimension of this. The baseline figure was of 14% of girls reporting having had
sex unwillingly in the previous year, but this fell to 7.9% (a 44% reduction)
after the two-year program. If we assume that the entire cost of the program
gave just this one benefit, the cost of avoiding one event of sexual violence
was $830 or $840 (3% or 5% discount rate). We can regard this as an upper
bound.
Benefits are more difficult to quantify, but are
physical, psychological and economic (lifetime income can be reduced). In the
USA, it is estimated that a rape costs the victim $151, 423. Scaling this on
the basis of GDP would give a figure of $1,709 for Uganda. Using these figures
suggests a benefit-cost ratio of about 2. The study’s authors conclude that
economic and social empowerment is possible even in situations where social
norms are difficult to change. They report annual benefits of $32.80 and costs
of between $21.80 and $17.90, but this is based only on household expenditure;
including the reduction in sexual violence would increase the benefits and BCR.
Intimate partner violence is also a big problem in
developing countries. A study from South Africa showed how a combined
microfinance and training intervention reduced the incidence of both sexual and
physical violence by 55%, although no cost data are available.
Empowerment can lead to an apparent increase in violence:
an increase of female political representation in local governments in India
caused a large increase in documented crimes against women. Given the lack of
evidence on the effects of programs that are targeted to reduce violence
against women and given its high prevalence everywhere in the world, a zero
target is not feasible and should not be included in the post-2015 goals. The
recommendation would be to focus more on programs that provide empowerment,
education, and economic opportunities for women.
End Child Marriage
Child marriage is defined as marriage below the age of
18, and affects girls disproportionately. Child brides are more likely to
finish education early, end up in poverty and suffer higher levels of maternal
mortality. A study in Bangladesh found that each additional year that marriage
is delayed increases years of schooling by 0.22 and literacy by 5.6%.
There are a few programs which focus specifically on
reducing child marriage, but they are not randomised, and it is difficult to
find a causal link with outcomes. However, there are programs under which fewer
child marriages are a by-product, and overall it seems that the best option is
to extend education, either by providing better employment opportunities or via
educational subsidies. One of the benefits of such programs is a reduction in
the level of early childbearing. The fertility rate has decreased in all
regions but it is still disproportionately high in Sub-Saharan Africa.
A trial was conducted in rural India in which randomly
selected villages received recruiters for well-paid jobs in the business
process outsourcing industry, with control villages receiving no visits. This
was a three-year program, with villages being revisited twice after the initial
contact. Women’s employment and schooling increased, and women aged 15-21 were
5-6 percentage points less likely to get married or give birth over this
period. Recruiters were paid $12 for each individual seen, and the probability
of marriage in year two was reduced by 5.1 percentage points. The cost of
delaying marriage by three years is calculated as $239-253, depending on the
discount rate.
A program of educational subsidies in Kenya (free school
uniforms for the last three years of primary school) reduced early marriage
rates by 2.6, 2.9 and 3.9 percentage points after three, five and seven years
respectively. The cost of one avoided early marriage during the first three
years was $884-902, with uniforms costing $6 a year.
Reductions in the rates of early marriage and
cohabitation were also found for the Ugandan program discussed earlier. The
provision of vocational training and information on sex, reproduction and
marriage resulted in a fall of 6.9 percentage points, or 58%, two years later,
at a cost of $733-742 per delayed marriage.
Marriage can be delayed if girls stay in school longer,
but a study in Malawi showed that unconditional cash transfers were more
effective than conditional ones because they still affected girls who had
dropped out of education. Both girls and their parents received payments and,
after two years, the girls were 44% less likely to be married than the control
group, a decrease of 7.9 percentage points. The cost of increasing the age of
marriage by two years is $2,775-2,802, but the program did, of course, deliver
other benefits.
These programs have very different costs, but it is clear
that they may well be cost-effective and increasing education or economic opportunities
for women is a good way of reducing the age of marriage. The drawback of these
programs is that they rarely provide evidence on the long-term effects.
A major problem associated with early marriage is early
childbirth. This results in lost lifetime earnings because young mothers are
less well educated. We can assume a ‘motherhood tax’ of 5% for one child and
10% for two. Yearly benefits of avoiding early pregnancy are calculated at
between $565 and $2,091 for the various programs, with the one in rural India
having by far the greatest benefit. Its costs were also considerably lower, but
it would be misleading to assume the rather high benefit-cost ratios would
apply elsewhere. The Kenyan and Ugandan studies have BCRs of about 2.9 and 1.7,
but the Malawian program does not seem cost-effective, having a BCR of less
than 0.4. However, in all cases, the costs are overestimates and the overall
benefits underestimates.
Overall, delaying adolescent and child marriage is almost
always associated with staying in school longer. We conclude that improving
economic opportunities for women and increasing women’s education should
definitely be included in the post-2015 agenda, but that it is not feasible to
have a zero target for early marriage.
Ensure Equal Right of Women to Own and Inherit Property, Sign a Contract,
Register a Business and Open a Bank Account
Women and men in the developed world nowadays have the
same legal rights to own property, to sign contracts, to open bank accounts,
etc. However, this is not the case in the developing world. There is a positive
correlation between women’s rights and development, measured by the Gender
Empowerment Measure (GEM) and GDP per capita. This is a measure of women’s
rights and their economic outcomes, but factors such as access to land, equal
custody of children and contraceptive prevalence are also correlated with
economic development.
One way to give women property rights and access to some
banking services is microfinance, which empowers them and gives them more
bargaining power in the household. However, an experiment in the Philippines
suggests this is not always necessarily beneficial. More evidence is needed
from other countries and other settings, given that our knowledge about
microfinance is still limited.
One of the roots of the asset gender-gap is the
difference in inheritance rights, which is still prevalent in some countries.
Evidence in India is that, after reform to inheritance rights, length of
schooling increases, but there is not necessarily a change in inheritance
patterns. On the other hand, a study in Peru showed that there was a 22%
decrease in fertility for households that received a property title.
We cannot directly evaluate most of the policies which
give women equal rights because they are country-specific. Costs cannot be
estimated because we do not have the counterfactual, and the benefits are
wide-ranging but difficult to monetize. Having the right to own and inherit
property and businesses, and having the right to sign contracts and open bank
accounts should be regarded as a pre-condition to achieve women’s empowerment,
get women out of poverty and allow them to pursue income generating activities.
Eliminate Discrimination Against Women in Political, Economic and Public
Life
This is a wide-ranging goal which cannot realistically be
set at zero. However, it can be redefined and focussed on a number of
sub-goals, such as those below.
Increase
Women’s Political Representation
In 2013, women occupied about 23% of parliamentary seats
across the world, which is low but a considerable improvement on the 13% found
in 1990. This increase has largely been due to the introduction of quotas, but
the percentage remains below 30% in all regions. It is impossible to work out
the costs and benefits of increased political representation, but male and
female politicians tend to make different policy decisions once in power, which
can change spending priorities.
Although we cannot estimate the cost-effectiveness, this
could be a very cheap and effective way to represent the needs of women and
improve their lives, especially in developing countries. Most of the evidence
we have on changes is from India. In West Bengal and Rajasthan, for example,
investment in water and other infrastructure increased in line with the
complaints of women. Female politicians may also act as role models and
increase the aspiration of girls.
However, there is also evidence that it is primarily ‘non-elite’
female politicians, holding seats reserved for lower castes, who invest more in
health, early education and other ‘women-friendly’ laws. On the other hand, the
effectiveness of women politicians may come less from expenditure on
infrastructure but from information campaigns. One standard deviation increase
in female political representation results in a 1.5 percentage point decrease
in neonatal mortality, while in Mexico there was a 30% lower chance of
observing a corruption episode in villages with women mayors.
Despite the problems associated with affirmative action,
given the difficulties of encouraging female political participation and the
huge potential benefits of female political participation, quotas should be
definitively considered, and the issue of female political participation should
definitely be included as a Post-2015 Goal.
Improve
Economic Opportunities for Women
Even if female labor force participation contributes to
the household income growth, it is estimated that half of the women in the
labor force are in vulnerable employment, and most of them receive less pay
than their male counterparts for the same work. Improving access to a regular
income is an important part of female empowerment and poverty reduction. The
experiment in rural India referred to above increased employment in well-paid
jobs and also shifted aspirations and increased the human capital investment
for girls. However, the study was not designed for cost-benefit analysis.
The randomized study in Uganda already discussed gives a
benefit-cost ratio of only 0.67-0.69 assuming reduction in early marriage to be
the only benefit, but there are other benefits whose value we can assess. There
is a 6.1 percentage point reduction in the incidence of unwanted sex; at a cost
of $1,580 per rape victim (scaled from the US figure), this gives a benefit of
$96.38. The reduction in early fertility would also give annual benefits of
$843 in terms of foregone earnings alone. Taken together, this gives a BCR or
3.1-3.2 for the overall program, and this could be larger still if parents are
more willing to invest in human capital for their daughters. Because 86% of
young women are currently out of the Ugandan labor force, the BCR is likely to
be lower in other countries, but probably still larger than 1. However, over
the longer term, the benefits increase. Even allowing for a drop off of 20%
annually for benefits and assuming a 5% discount rate, the BCR is 5.9 after
four years.
The “Jóvenes en Acción” program in Colombia offered both classroom
and on-the-job training to young people. Women who were offered training earned
19.6% more and had a 0.068 higher probability to be in paid employment. The
gain per woman was $211 per year, with a cost of $812. The benefit-cost ratio
is greater than one if the women work for four years and, assuming constant
earnings over a 40-year working life, it rises to 4.7-6.2 (5% and 3% discount
rate).
These studies suggest that improved economic
opportunities should definitely be part of the post-2015 agenda.
Equal Access
to Education
Education has large benefits for girls and women and a
minimum level of education is a pre-condition to achieve equality in the labor
force and political participation, to eliminate early marriage and violence
against women, and to ensure that women are able fully to take advantage of
their assets and property rights. Studies discussed above have encouraging
benefit-cost ratios and educational programs to retain girls in school should
be part of the agenda.
Sexual and
Reproductive Health
According to the UN only half of women in the developing
world receive the amount of needed healthcare. The maternal mortality rate has
decreased, but it remains unnecessarily high in many areas in the world. Kohler
and Behrman, in their Copenhagen Consensus paper on population demonstrate very
high benefit-cost ratios for achieving universal access to reproductive health
services and reducing maternal mortality rates by 20%. It is important to note
that empowerment to control their own fertility is an important pre-condition
to achieve all the other targets in this paper.
Policy Recommendations and Conclusion
There are three important issues in which governments and
development agencies should invest in and from which wider benefits will flow: