4 ms·

This is not a one-off study. There is a long record of similar studies showing that the number of years of education a girl receives delays marriage, and while

• flossly 5mo ago
  Indeed, we know this, "educate girls to fix society", already for many years. The other "societal fix we know for year to work" is reducing economic inequality. https://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson_how_economic_inequality_harms_societies https://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson_how_economic_ine...
  • wat10000 5mo ago
    I suspect there would be broad agreement across the political spectrum that more education means later marriage and later first pregnancy. The disagreement would mostly be over whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.
    • flossly 5mo ago
      Smaller families, better education level of the next gen, ... But yeah, if you are afraid of a war you want your group to be big, uneducated, easy to manipulate and expendable.
    • svnt 5mo ago
      Complication from pregnancy is the leading cause of death in 15-19 year old girls, and second in 10-14, only because many of them are not yet able to conceive. We have excellent data on this. Later marriage/first pregnancy is clearly a good thing. https://www.who.int/health-topics/adolescent-health/pregnancy-and-childbirth-complications-are-the-leading-cause-of-death-among-15-19-year-old-girls#:~:text=Pregnancy%20complications%20and%20unsafe%20abortions,accessing%20health%20information%20and%20services. https://www.who.int/health-topics/adolescent-health/pregnanc...
      • wat10000 5mo ago
        I completely agree, but there's a decent chunk of people out there who don't.
      • mothballed 5mo ago
        When I looked up causes of death in Nigeria, malaria blew away anything maternal related[]. Not that I would want to die of either. Another big one was HIV/AIDS. I guess it depends on cultural factors whether early marriage might reduce the number of partners that could introduce HIV/aids. If non-married people are less monogamous it's conceivable the increased risk of HIV/AIDS could overpower the risks of whatever additional childbirth is associated with marriage. Also note pollution was one of the bigger risks present in Nigeria. So as people get educated to go slave away in a dirty factory (or a city full of them where educated people work) it might actually be worse for their health than staying at home and marrying into some pastoral herding tribe or something. [] https://ourworldindata.org/profile/health/nigeria https://ourworldindata.org/profile/health/nigeria
        • trollbridge 5mo ago
          And more roads means more pollution. It is questionable if the answer is “make everyone dependent on cars”, although doing so obviously improves some outcomes.
      • watwut 5mo ago
        Lets stop pretending there is an agreement that pain or harm to girls matters.
  • eastbound 5mo ago
    The gender gap in compassion is always surprising. There is never “educate boys to fix society”. The argument is as follows: “But girls get raped, so we need to save them” “Who rapes girls?” “Boys” “What opportunities do they have?” “Drugs, army, and the street” “Wouldn’t they too deserve to be given care, notably the care that was too given to girls?” “No, [various reasons]” “But don’t you care that girls get raped by boys?” “Yes” “So what do you do?” “Take care of the girls”.
    • mothballed 5mo ago
      Males want to attract females and get married. They way they can do this is by achieving money/power. If education is profitable and possible, then executing it takes care of itself. If it's not possible, well it was a moot cause anyway unless some outsider will come in and help. Females are valuable just for their ... personal assets ... so bootstrapping is a little harder because they have intrinsic value they can fall back on (someone is going to get angry at me for saying that, but it's just the way it is). If I can just marry a rich man I might be okay with that, or whoever makes the decisions for me might be okay with that. You have to get someone to come in and force enough of them to feel like they're a failure for not getting an education and then eventually they'll socially reinforce it themselves without further outside influence. I believe this is why it's much higher yield for the enlightened outsider to come in and declare their moral and intellectual superiority and tell the females they are losers (or less happy, or less independent, whatever the politically correct terminology is used nowadays) for not getting an education, and get (read: bribe) their families to put them into it.
      • lotsofpulp 5mo ago
        Wild comment. > If I can just marry a rich man I might be okay with that, or whoever makes the decisions for me might be okay with that Fyi, “just marry” incorporates a lot of things would disqualify the use of the term “just”. The least of which is pregnancy and the risks thereof, especially in these poorer societies without healthcare.
        • 5mo ago
  • dotancohen 5mo ago
    [flagged]
    • nkrisc 5mo ago
      Have you asked the women and girls in those societies if they think it’s racist and disgusting?
      • dotancohen 5mo ago
        Have you?
        • nkrisc 5mo ago
          No, which is why I am not making a moral judgement on it.
          • dotancohen 5mo ago
            Well I am making a moral judgement. Declaring that other societies need fixing is racist and disgusting. Go ask the women and girls in your society if your own society needs fixing.
      • deadeye 5mo ago
        Counter point...have you seen the rates a females on anti-anxiety / anti-depression medication in our culture? I'm not a moral relativist, but I'm not sure we've perfected things here either.
        • fl4regun 5mo ago
          Consider the level of access girls and women in poorer countries have to psychological assessment and medication compared to ours.
          • deleted 5mo ago
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