Women Empowerment and Education

Education as such results in positive externalities. Not only does it have an intrinsic value in the sense of the joy of learning reading etc but it also has instrumental social and process roles. Moreover education may spread through interpersonal motivation. When one individual sends her child to school her neighbour is likely to do so as well. Women’s education too often spreads this way more specifically through same sex effects. I.e. an educated woman is far more likely to send her daughter to school than an uneducated woman. Also she is likely to maintain better conditions of nutrition and hygiene in her household and thereby improve her familys health (Sen 1997).