The Economic Participation of Adolescent Girls and Young Women: Why Does It Matter?

The rapid progress of many countries toward gender equality in education has been welldocumented. Of 106 countries, 83 achieved the Millennium Development target of parity in primary and secondary education by 2005; only 19 countries, most in sub-Saharan Africa, are off-track to meet the target of gender equality in primary and secondary school enrolment by 2015. While the progress on meeting targets for gender equality in education is laudable, in many countries it is not being followed-up by successful school-to-work transitions. Of particular concern are adolescents and young adults who neither work nor study (henceforth referred to as “inactive”). Across all world regions (see Figure 1), young women aged 2024 have significantly higher rates of inactivity than young men. The gaps between young women and young men are substantial. In South Asia, the region with the largest gap, 64% of young women neither work nor study, while only 5% of young men are inactive. Latin America is another region with a large gap: 34% for young women and only 7% for young men.