Saima, a maid, has to fight her husband and her in-laws to let her six-year-old daughter, Batool, go to school. They are worried she will consort with boys and learn ‘bad’ ways.

Pakistan’s and Bangladesh’s literacy rates were similar as recent as 2007. However, by 2019, Bangladesh’s female literacy rate was twice that of Pakistan. And the correlation between girl education and economic benefits can be seen in a generation: by 2016, Bangladesh’s GDP per capita had surpassed Pakistan’s.

Uneducated girls tend to be married early and then spend the next two decades birthing children, continuing the cycle of poverty. According to a study quoted by the World Bank, increasing female education by one year in Nigeria reduced early fertility by 0.26 births. So if Batool is allowed to study for ten more years, she is unlikely to be a desperate mother of eight like her mother is, allowing her children to have a life better than her’s.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, December 19th, 2022