Women, Education, and Family Structure in India by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Political Science, World, Asian, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9780813385112
Google: ryhHEAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 711199
Publisher: Westview Press
Published: 1994-01-10T00:00:00+00:00

Benefits of Girls' Education

So far I have focused on the socially problematic aspects of science and engineering education for girls and the negative marriageability impact of entering prestigious science fields and institutions. Yet education for girls can enhance a girl's marriage prospects. Chanana (Chapter 2) and Karlekar (Chapter 3) describe how historical arguments for girls' education emphasized cultivating attributes consistent with patrifocal family structure and ideology. Educated wives were portrayed as better able to supervise the education of children (especially sons), to interact more comfortably in the world of their spouses, and to serve as companions and helpmates to their husbands. Better-educated husbands also demanded better educated wives, an impetus for families to educate their daughters to some degree (see Vatuk and Ullrich, this volume).

Today these arguments for women's education may carry even more weight, particularly given the family backgrounds, educational attainments, and career prospects of students at elite universities like IIT. As more boys acquire more education, especially in science and engineering, it is possible for more girls also to pursue science and engineering degrees. Among highly educated elites, even the potential social risks of allowing girls to enter engineering and science may be balanced by the prestige and social recognition such an accomplishment brings to the girl and her family. A daughter's success in a scientific or technical field can also provide opportunities abroad, including immigration, for the girl as well as for her natal family and future spouse and in-laws. And there may be a growing tendency towards educational endogamy, advantageous for those who, like several informants, planned to set up small electronics firms with spouses.

Traditional marriage "pluses" of education are currently augmented by the growing value attached to a girl's earning capacity. Student informants consistently described "earning potential" as an asset in the marriage market, given the rising cost of living and the desire of some husbands for "economic independence." For urban middle-class families, in particular, an "earning" daughter or daughter-in-law can be a positive asset, especially since more "respectable" office jobs have become available for women.22

Pre-marriage benefits to a girl's family, combined with marriageability pluses, can also reduce resistance to a daughter's entering science and engineering, or attending a prestigious but socially risky university. While most informants' families do not require financial assistance, at least one female student's education is considered a collective family asset. In this case, the girl's father initially resisted paying for graduate study, even though she was an outstanding student. He was eventually persuaded she could secure a "better job" and improve her marriage chances with a master's degree and then a Ph.D. in science. In addition, she would receive a stipend as a graduate student. Subsequently, he insisted that she attend IIT rather than the local state university she preferred, reportedly because the IIT graduate stipend was larger and could be used to finance her younger brother's engineering education.

Marriageability aside, at least some families view professional degrees as a form of insurance for their daughters. Female informants often stressed the

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