The relationship between women’s education and socio-economic development: The case of Turkey

One of the most complex educational challenges that developing countries currently face is attaining gender parity in access, enrollment and achievement in education. According to EFA (2010) report, in 2007, more than 600,000 children in the compulsory primary school age group (6 to 14) were not enrolled in school in Turkey. In addition, around 60% of these children were female. Hence, girls' school attainment is a challenging problem for Turkey. Girls' education is known as very important for both individuals and societies because of the large positive benefits of female education on children's and adult's health, adult fertility, and infant mortality (Handa, 1999). More importantly for developing countries, increased opportunities and greater access to education for girls contribute to the human development of other family members and to economic growth (Human Development Report, 1996: 6). In these regards, our study has two main goals; 1) to present current situation regarding to girls' school attainment in Turkey 2) to investigate the relationship between women's education and socio-economic development of different regions of Turkey. The 1997 Human Development Report stated that there is a significant association between gender inequality and human poverty by showing a systematic relationship between the Gender Development Index (GDI) and the Human Poverty Index (HPI). The situation in Turkey also reflects the above statement. According to data from State Institute of Statistics of Turkey (TUIK), there is a strong relationship between women's education in different regions and socio-economic development of these regions. Copyright © 2010 Common Ground, Nezahat Güçlü, Sedat Gumus, Emine Gumus.