Education and literacy
Education is a key determinant of gender equality and health operating in two ways: (1) at a macro level through improved overall opportunities for livelihood – occupation, employment and income and (2) improved capacity for health literacy and health-related knowledge and awareness, contributing to better health behaviors and use of preventive health services (3,41). An increase in educational parity is significantly associated with improvements in both male and female life expectancy. More directly, increased educational attainment is linked to delayed age at first marriage and first sexual experience for females (41). Girls with less education, living in rural areas and poorer households are more likely to be married or in union; and early marriage is associated with an increased risk of early pregnancy, STIs and gender-based violence further contributing to girl’s low educational attainment (41). In terms of first sexual experience, a study in Lao People’s Democratic Republic found that among adolescent girls and boys aged 14-19 years, school attendance reduced the odds of sexual debut less than 15 years for both girls and boys (41,42).
In the Region, the gap between boys’ and girls’ net enrolment rates for primary, secondary, compulsory age and or vocational education is small, and sometimes favors girls (43). For example, higher rates of enrolment in compulsory education for girls in Marshall Islands (78%) compared to boys. In some countries however this may reflect higher employment among adolescent boys who leave school early and have lower educational attainment (41). Among adolescent boys and girls, there are differences in opportunities for educational attainment with adolescents from rural areas and poorest households less likely to attend secondary school than their urban and wealthier peers (41).
Other characteristics such as disability may compound gender effects on education attainment. For example, in Cambodia education and disability status differed significantly by gender for severe disability measures, with the relative enrolment ratio for girls and boys being 30% and 63% respectively, compared with 71% and 68% for the broad disability measure and 91% and 89% for children without disabilities (15). However, data on disability and education for the region is limited with only one third of the countries with DHS or MICS data reporting on disability and education. Control for demographic and socioeconomic differences such as age, education level, disability should be considered to understand the full picture of the effect of gender on health.
The cost of education for example tuition fees can influence uptake of education. A review of programmatic, legal and policy approaches to reduce gender inequality and change restrictive gender norms included a longitudinal review of tuition-free primary education law and policies, and paid maternity and parental leave laws and policies.[1] Exposure to tuition-free primary education laws and or policies was found to substantially increase women’s likelihood of completing primary school, and substantially increased women’s and their children’s likelihood of having better health outcomes (1). In most countries in the Region, education (primary, beginning and completing secondary education) is tuition free and compulsory (29). Exceptions include: Papua New Guinea reported tuition for primary education; five countries reported tuition fees for beginning and completing secondary education (Fiji, Korea, Singapore, Vanuatu and Viet Nam); and three countries reported tuition for completing secondary education (Cambodia, China and Samoa).
Literacy is unevenly distributed in the Region particularly among adults and older people, with rates varying across countries and between men and women within countries (Table 1). Substantial differences for men and women aged 15+ years exist with differences in men’s favor ranging from just under 1% to nearly 12%, however in some countries literacy among adult women is slightly higher (43).
The gender parity index (GPI) is calculated by dividing the female by the male literacy rate and represents a different way of looking at the relative literacy skills of men and women. A GPI value below 1 means that the female literacy rate is below the male literacy rate, while values between 0.97 and 1.03 are generally interpreted to indicate gender parity. Data from 2008-2016 for 17 countries in
| Table 1: Adult literacy rates by sex, selected countries, Western Pacific Region, 2009-2016 (43) | |||
| Country | Women | Men | Percentage
difference |
| Brunei Darussalam | 94.65 | 97.43 | 2.78 |
| Cambodia | 75.03 | 86.53 | 11.50 |
| China | 92.71 | 97.48 | 4.77 |
| Macao (China) | 95.03 | 98.19 | 3.15 |
| Lao People’s Democratic Republic | 79.39 | 89.96 | 10.57 |
| Malaysia | 91.07 | 96.30 | 5.23 |
| Marshall Islands | 98.20 | 98.33 | 0.12 |
| Mongolia | 98.34 | 98.17 | -0.16 |
| New Caledonia | 97.50 | 98.14 | 0.64 |
| Palau | 96.34 | 96.81 | 0.47 |
| Papua New Guinea | 57.90 | 65.29 | 7.39 |
| Philippines | 96.79 | 96.01 | -0.78 |
| Samoa | 99.07 | 98.88 | -0.19 |
| Singapore | 95.45 | 98.73 | 3.29 |
| Tonga | 99.43 | 99.34 | -0.10 |
| Vanuatu | 83.20 | 86.18 | 2.98 |
| Viet Nam | 91.38 | 95.79 | 4.41 |
the Region show that most of those 17 countries are doing well on GPI for youth (15-19 years) and adult literacy (15+ years) but less so for the gender gap in the literacy rate among the elderly (43). The GPI indicates that women aged 64+ years in some countries in the Region have lower literacy than women of younger ages.
[1] The sample for tuition-free primary education laws and policies was across 23 countries including Cambodia as a ‘treatment’ country and the Philippines as a ‘control’ country.
References
Feedback
Notification
