Women Position and Demographic Change

In “Women Position and Demographic Change” Federici, Mason, and Sogner discusses the possible implications or consequences when women’s position are altered. Additionally, the authors utilize demographic information and statistical evidence to prove that women’s position has a demographical affect. Their primary focus is fertility rates in relation to women’s position. Ultimately, they concluded …

            I am disinterested in their conclusion, because it does little to further my thesis that Afghanistan’s low literacy rate is a product of its demographics and famial construct. On the other hand, the authors included evidence correlating to the subject of demographics and their possible causes/effect. Thus, I am able to use the demographic analysis provided as evidence in my thesis paper a high rate to explain some phenomena and therefore, for my own thesis of what causes high illiteracy rate.

             Federici, Mason, and Sogner are extremely concerned with women’s status. I too, acknowledge, how women’s status affects their families. One of the most influential demographic is that 1.5 million widows exist in Afghanistan currently. The rate is expected to continue to grow. Martial status is a great signifier of women’s position. Single women, married women, and widows all maintain different status implications. That is that women are defined through the status of men that surround them (essentially, guardians). Thus, widows may experience a shift (negative or positive) in their status.

The authors claim “A change in women’s position directly and independently contributes to a change in fertility or mortality.” Essentially, the authors propose that as women gain independence their children’s survival increases because it may “increase the mother’s ability to provide her children with adequate nutrition and medical care and secondly, it also may increase the value of daughters and thereby encouraging greater nutritional and medical investments in daughters as well as son.” The basic premises that underlies this hypothesis is that because women give birth to and are responsible for the day to day care of young children when they have the ability to improve child nutrition (e.g. because they earn money and can buy food for their children), or have the ability to take advantage of medical services (e.g. because they have the freedom to make decisions on their own without having to consult their husbands, or mother’s in-law, they will act on this ability, and child survival will improve.” Basically, children are best off when their mothers have status.

Widows may experience a loss of status and position in Afghanistan because of the vale placed on family structure consisting of men as the lead providers; unless the husband’s family offers financial support. In following the author’s proposition then one might expect the children survival decreases when cared for by a widowed mother. If children are too sick or malnourished due to a decrease in nutrition they may not be able to attend school. Additionally limited financial resource may cause school to be less of a priority, specifically for girls, who do not provide sufficient financial reward.  Therefore, the high rate of widowed mothers means that children’s decreased survival negatively affects school attendance. Moreover, rare or minimal attendance may cause low grades and illiteracy. So that one may assume high widow rates in Afghan, especially due to women’s dependency on men, fosters an environment of high illiteracy among children.

            My conclusion that high widow demographic causes illiterate children could be furthered to specify that it likely that girls will be the most illiterate demographic. As previously mentioned, the authors found widespread infanticide of neglect of girls is most frequent in countries where women are dependent on men. Since it is already established that women are economically dependent on men, one can assume that girls are more likely too be neglected that boys are because boys provide financial gain for a family. Consequently, a high rate of widows not only means that children survival rate is compromised, but also, that a girl’s survival rate is further compromised. If this is so, than girls are far less likely to attend school than boys are and even more likely to be illiterate than boys are.