"Education is good at reducing poverty for rural people,
who can use it to get better work or income ..."
--Rural Poverty Report, p. 107

THEME: Education becomes an instrumental asset for low-income rural women only when other assets or opportunities are also available.

Human assets, according to the IFAD Rural Poverty Report 2001, are essentially a type of asset in which capital is 'embodied' in people. Main examples are: education, health and nutritional status. There are large gaps in access to such assets between the rich and poor, rural and urban populations and, quite often, men and women. Within education, the Rural Poverty Report recognizes the differences between male and female educational access and literacy levels. It argues for special policy attention being paid to women and girls to avoid increasing their existing disadvantage. But the report also recognizes that for education to result in income benefits, it needs to be linked to other assets and opportunities.

The IFAD report sees human assets, including education, as having two types of values:

• intrinsic value in raising capabilities, which can have psychological benefits in terms of self-esteem or happiness (which do not necessarily translate into instrumental value); and
• instrumental value in raising productivity and income, which further enhances the intrinsic value or benefits.

Unfortunately, poorer men, women and youth, and ethnic minorities frequently obtain only intrinsic value from education assets because they lack the necessary physical assets or opportunities to use that education. While not uniquely a problem of women, this situation occurs more often with women and girls than with similar males. Women:

• may not control land, on which they could make independent farming decisions, or have access to credit, other inputs or tools, which would allow them to apply their knowledge to increase productivity and yields;
• usually face extra disadvantages and discrimination in labour markets; and
• are often inhibited by cultural stereotypes and social attitudes from taking on new tasks or responsibilities that are considered in the male domain.

For such reasons, women usually have a more difficult time achieving instrumental value from any education they acquire. Several IFAD evaluations have found, for instance, that when women claim to have benefited from training or education, assessments show that there is very little impact, in terms either of income or in the improvement of their status within the household or community. A recent IFAD evaluation of women's clubs near Jericho is a case in point. The study found that though women claimed they had acquired new skills and new and useful information, the impact was primarily a psychological one, rather than one on income or one that improved their status. Other studies have documented similar types of outcomes elsewhere.

Several IFAD reports also show that women may acquire literacy and numeracy skills but still rely on their husbands to manage their businesses. The reasons for this may be cultural, or the cause may lie in women's lack of confidence in their own abilities. An evaluation of an IFAD-supported project in Tamil Nadu found, for instance, that the income-generating activities of the majority of women in male-headed households continued to be managed by the men. And a study conducted in conjunction with an IFAD project in Uganda found that even when women acquired literacy skills, they still tended to rely on men to keep their accounts. This pattern existed even among successful women's group enterprises. Apart from having empowerment considerations, failure to use skills can result in the eventual loss of those skills.

Improvement of women's access to education, and particularly their access to non-formal training and education, needs to be done in conjunction with improving their access to other assets and opportunities. While psychological or intrinsic benefits may be satisfying, they cannot feed the poor.

Adapted from:

IFAD. 2001. Rural Poverty Report 2001: The Challenge of Ending Rural Poverty. Oxford University Press. February.

Additional sources:

Massar Associates. 1999. Impact of the Relief and Development Program, Jericho and Gaza. Ramallah.
FAO/IFAD. 2000. IFAD Gender Strengthening Programme for East and Southern Africa - Uganda Field Diagnostic Study (Draft). Rome: FAO.
IFAD/OE. 2000. The Republic of India: Tamil Nadu Women's Development Project: Completion Evaluation, Report 340-IN. Rome, April.

Hot links IFAD Rural Poverty Report 2001