Beyond Girls’ Education: Pathways to Women’s Post-Marital Education in Matlab, Bangladesh

Abstract

Globally, expanding women’s educational opportunities is promoted as an effective strategy for their empowerment. While women’s access to education in Bangladesh has increased in recent years, little is known about their participation in educational activities after marriage. Historically, local gender norms expect women to marry at an early age, perform domestic labor, and discontinue educational activities in adulthood. In this study, twenty-four married women and twenty-five married men ages 15–49 were interviewed about women’s experiences with post-marital education in Matlab. Results showed that husbands and wives acted within the bounds of persistent, classic patriarchal norms to seek or inhibit access to education within marriage. Despite increases in women’s primary and secondary school graduation rates in Bangladesh, this study suggests that women still face barriers to access to educational opportunities and understanding these limitations is crucial to advancing women’s pathways to economic and overall empowerment in Bangladesh.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Married women encounter numerous barriers to education in Matlab, Bangladesh.

• Married couples strategize to negotiate wives’ aspiration to pursue education.

• Married men view wives’ post-marital education unfavorably as a means to employment.

• Women self-restrict education, considering lack of social and familial endorsement.

• Engaging husbands in research and programs to advance women’s education is needed.

KEYWORDS:

• Marriage
• qualitative methods
• gender roles
• education
• women and development

JEL Codes:

• I23
• O2

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study was funded by research grant # 1R21HD093027: “Intimate Partner Coercion and Implications for Women’s Health and Well-being” (PI: Kathryn M. Yount) from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Development. This research would not have been successfully completed without the help and collaboration from the International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b). We would like to thank the icddr,b research team for their generous comments on earlier versions of this paper. We would also like to acknowledge the participation of the men and women in this study. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kathryn M. Yount, Emory University, address: 1518 Clifton Rd., NE, Atlanta GA 30345; email: [email protected].

Notes

1 All personal information that would allow the identification of any person(s) described in the article has been removed.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Development: [Grant Number 1R21HD093027].

Notes on contributors

Kiera Chan

Kiera Chan is a Masters of Public Health candidate at the Hubert Department of Global Health at Emory University. Her research centers on women’s and girls’ education, prevention of child marriage, and menstrual health. Her work revolves around women’s empowerment in the South Asian region. She seeks to understand the stigma around women’s health and evaluate interventions toward women’s health and empowerment.

Stephanie Spaid Miedema

Dr. Stephanie Spaid Miedema is Behavioral Scientist on the Child Abuse, Neglect and Adversity Team, Research and Evaluation Branch, Division of Violence Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Her support to this project was conducted under her affiliation as Adjunct Faculty in the Hubert Department of Global Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University. She conducts global and domestic research on the multilevel determinants of child maltreatment, intimate partner violence and sexual violence against women, and gender and sexual minorities. She most recently completed a post-doctoral fellowship on the Child Abuse, Neglect and Adversity team in the Research and Evaluation Branch of the Division of Violence Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Miedema has served on multiple NIH and United Nations funded research and evaluation studies on gender equality, women’s empowerment, and violence prevention, predominantly in South and Southeast Asia. Her career experiences and research span multiple countries, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Kiribati, Myanmar, Thailand, and Viet Nam. Her research is published in sociology and public health journals, including Gender and Society, Lancet Global Health, and Social Science and Medicine. Dr. Miedema received her PhD in Sociology and her MPH in Behavioral Science and Health Education from Emory University in Atlanta, GA. She completed an MA in International Studies and Diplomacy from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.

Ruchira Tabassum Naved

Ruchira Tabassum Naved is Emeritus Scientist at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b). Her research work spanning around three decades is focused mainly on violence against women and girls and sexual and reproductive health and rights. She has published extensively on these topics using both quantitative and qualitative research methods.

Kathryn M. Yount

Dr. Kathryn M. Yount is Asa Griggs Candler Chair of Global Health (2012) and Professor of Global Health and Sociology (2015) at Emory University. Her research centers on the social determinants of women’s health, including mixed-methods evaluations of social-norms and empowerment-based programs to reduce gender-based violence and health disparities in underserved populations. She has been funded continuously since 2002 from US federal agencies, private foundations, and foreign agencies to work in parts of Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, and underserved communities in Atlanta. These collaborations have culminated in more than 200 publications in the social sciences and global health.