Girls, we have been told, or at least some would like us to believe, are the key to development. There’s been a lot of talk about productivity differentials being resolved by decreasing discrimination in the US, but much of the world has yet to catch up in this manner. Girls, getting them to school, keeping them from getting pregnant and dying in childbirth early on, giving them skills to earn wages and get jobs. All these things, clearly, are important, but there’s also not much hard evidence regarding just how important.
This is pretty much all I think about these days (that and, what the heck am I going to do India in two weeks). At a ladies’ tea on Saturday (yes, I do teas; you expect me to write about economics or go cycling all the time?), a friend said she was sure the Goddess was coming. This is a very Boulder thing to say, but all the same, I had to agree. My head, of course goes to the much more terrestrial outcomes of things like: women are becoming more educated than their male peers, earning more money, taking on higher leadership roles, but it’s the same sentiment, I think.
Just musing for the moment, but here’s a link to the World Bank’s 2012 report on Gender Equality. It’s long, and is perhaps not as optimistic as my friend, but points out some pretty exciting things, like “gender gaps in primary education have closed in almost all countries,” and “over half a billion women have joined the world’s labor force over the last 30 years.” The website is also good and much more navigable if you don’t feel like reading the whole report.
ERIN K. FLETCHER 