Based on ethnographic fieldwork, we explore the rural-urban migration of 27 girls and young women who leave their rural communities and move to the city to pursue their secondary education, in the ethnically diverse Southern Region of Ethiopia. We consider the nature and extent of the inequalities that they face in rural areas which limit their…

In 2004, the government of Punjab, Pakistan introduced a conditional cash assistance program for girls attending secondary schools. We exploit variations in exposure to the program across cohorts and regions to estimate the long run effects of the program on women's marriage and fertility decisions, maternal healthcare utilization and the health…

As a postcolonial Indian woman now living in the West, I managed to overcome my own circumstances by finding my voice and resisting the oppression of an abusive arranged marriage. Subsequently, as a teacher of at risk marginalized and immigrant youth in the inner cities of 21st century America, who continue to be "colonized" by a public…

This study proposes an elaboration of the human development capability approach by theorizing empowerment capabilities as an essential aspect of the education of excluded village girls. Seeking to explain Chinese village girls' demand for schooling, the article identifies intangible and instrumental capabilities that have often been overlooked and…

The third of the eight Millennium Development Goals is to promote gender equality and empower women. This article discusses the factors that are associated with 31 female higher education students' choices and aspirations to pursue education and careers in mathematics and science-related fields. The analysis is based on semistructured interviews.…

While previous research has focused on the relationship between education and women's empowerment in the public sphere, their empowerment in the private sphere has been less fully developed in empirical studies. Drawing on a theoretical model of change in marital relationships, this article examines how women who participated in an innovative…