Study Note - How does the education of women affect population?

Literacy and education are important tools in the emancipation of women, which spreads the knowledge of contraception methods.

The global youth female literacy rate, which is classified as the percentage of those between the ages of 15 and 24 who can, with understanding, read and write a short, simple statement of their everyday life, has increased steadily across the past few decades, and correlates with a direct decrease in the number of female children who are not in primary education. The two graphs are shown below (data from the World Bank):

When people are illiterate and uneducated a very strong influence is exerted on them by tradition, religion and superstition, and to attempt to interfere with the natural course of life via methods of contraception is considered wrong and likely to evoke the wrath of God. Such social customs as ancestor worship among the Chinese, polygamy among the Muslim community, and early marriage along with continued procreation until a son is born among the Hindu population, have traditionally encouraged population growth. In Latin America and parts of Africa the Roman Catholic Church has a strong influence, and birth control is contrary to the teachings of the Church.

Improvements in female education, and the spread of family planning clinics and knowledge of contraception techniques has, however, led to a global decrease in the fertility rate, shown here in a graph from the World Bank: