Following being prohibited from attending schools for five years, the female community was officially permitted to do so when the Taliban administration was overthrown in Afghanistan in 2001. American University and World Bank academics examined the financial advantages of the social shift in the years that followed. They made use of information from Afghanistan’s 2007–2014–2020 Labour Force and Community Studies. The research had a significant outcome.
Every aspect of educational options increased with the collapse of the Taliban in its first ruling period. The overall rate of neonatal death decreased by fifty percent. Furthermore, from US$810 in 2001 to $2,590 in 2020, the gross national income per capita almost quadrupled in actual terms of monetary value.
The females have had a significant role in the nation’s economic development during this time. Although The country’s median gain for dollars spent in schooling is still inadequate in general, it is excellent for the females. The incomes of women, for instance, rose by 13% for each extra year of education. This exceeds the 9% worldwide median for earnings from education expenditure.
The Taliban came back to power three years ago, two decades after their original prohibition on women attending school was overturned. It has prohibited half of the society from going to school past the elementary school once more. Around a billion dollars might be the possible financial burden. The broader societal consequences of women’s lower educational attainment are not included in the calculation. To put things in perspective, Afghanistan’s total GDP in 2023 was only $17 billion.
The analysis shows how disastrous the most recent restriction on schooling might be. The ironic aspect is that the catastrophe affects the entire nation, not just the female community.
In Afghanistan, there is an absence of study data on the financial benefits of education, particularly for women. However, such data is essential to comprehending the financial costs a nation incurs when women are excluded from employment and educational possibilities.
By measuring how incomes fluctuated in reaction to an extra year of education, the study tried to close this difference. The experts examined the period from 2004 to 2020, when authorities extended mandatory schooling for both genders for three more education years.
The results imply that the price of keeping women out of the workforce and in school is far more than formerly thought. The latest study estimates that Afghanistan might lose more than $1.4 billion a year. This means that the national income has dropped by approximately 2%.
Scholars generally believe that the effects of funding women’s education extend beyond any one woman. It provides long-lasting social and economic advantages. It involves better health outcomes for the children and increased levels of enrollment in education centers. For a two-decade span, ending in 2021, more studies might examine the societal advantages of women receiving education in Afghanistan. Further studies might examine the benefits of education for the general population by determining if funding for women’s higher education disrupts generations-long patterns of impoverishment.
