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Consider the following:

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• Child marriage leads girls to have children earlier and more children over their lifetime, which in turn reduces the ability of households to meet their basic needs, thus contributing to poverty. Child marriage reduces women’s earnings in adulthood by 9%. Each year of additional secondary school education reduces the likelihood for girls of marrying as a child by about 5-6%. [i]

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• The success in education indicators for girls correlate positively with the income level of their respective country and negatively with its level of poverty. Education is a pathway toward women’s employment, empowerment, and improved health; and it brings tangible benefits for their children, family and community. As the old African proverb says, “if you educate a man, you educate an individual. But if you educate a woman, you educate a nation.” [ii][iii]  

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• Investing in girls’ and women’s education is essential to build peaceful, just, equitable and inclusive societies, and for the lasting protection of the planet and its natural resources. One additional year of school can increase a woman’s earnings by up to 20%. Women with a secondary education are 9.6% more likely to work than those with a primary education or less. Women with secondary education could expect to make more than twice as much as those with no education. Achieving universal secondary education could increase women’s decision making in the household by one fifth. If the share of women receiving a lower secondary education increased from 30% to 70%, this could result in a 60% lower death toll from extreme weather events by 2050. [iv]

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• When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 35 to 40 percent for a man. By focusing on girls and women, innovative businesses and organizations can spur economic progress, expand markets, and improve health and education outcomes for everyone. [v]

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• The global population of girls aged 10 to 24 is currently around 1.8 billion and is expected to peak in the next decade. Approximately 50 million girls in this age group are living in poverty. Only a small fraction of international aid is directed specifically towards girls. Recent data indicates that less than 2% of international aid is targeted at adolescent girls. [vi]

 

In Kenya, 1 in 4 young women were married before their 18th birthday. Women living in rural areas are twice as likely to be married under age 18 than women living in urban areas. This urban-rural divide has continued to widen due to persistent poverty, lack of education, and cultural practices in rural areas. [vii][viii]

 

Reference

[i] The International Center for Research on Women and the World Bank. (2017). "Economic Impacts of Child Marriage: Global Synthesis Report".

[ii] The World Bank Group. (2023). "What Works to Narrow Gender Gaps and Empower Women in Sub-Saharan Africa? An evidence-review of selected impact evaluation studies.

[iii] Foreign Policy Research Institute. (2022). "Educational and Health Issues Affecting Women and Girls in Africa." Retrieved from https://www.fpri.org/article/2022/04/educational-and-health-issues-affecting-women-and-girls-in-africa/ [Online Resource]

[iv] Global Education Monitoring Report Team, UNESCO, & UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2024). "Investing in Girls’ and Women’s Education: A Smart Investment to Accelerate Development."

[v] United Nations, Clinton Global Initiative. (2024), "Empowering Girls & Women." Retrieved from https://www.un.org/en/ecosoc/phlntrpy/notes/clinton.pdf [Online Resource]

[vi] Hannah Ritchie and Lucas Rodés-Guirao. (2024). “Peak Global Population and Other Key Findings from the 2024 UN World Population Prospects” Published online at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: https://ourworldindata.org/un-population-2024-revision [Online Resource]

[vii] UNICEF.(2022). "Child Marriage Country Profile: Kenya." Retrieved from https://data.unicef.org/wp-content/uploads/country_profiles/Kenya/Child%20Marriage%20Country%20Profile_KEN.pdf [Online Resource]

[viii] Nation Africa. (2023). Why child marriage will last until 2092: UN’s shocking forecast. Retrieved from https://nation.africa/kenya/news/gender/why-child-marriage-will-last-until-2092-un-s-shocking-forecast-4859348 [Online Resource]