Hey! Economics of Access to Reproductive Control!

This episode of Earth and Sky ran on NPR today. Normally that segment kind of bugs me, but this one's gold. Maybe because it has little to do with the earth or the sky.



JB: This is Earth and Sky. In 2000, at the United Nations Millennium Summit, world leaders pledged to cut in half the number of people living in extreme poverty by the year 2015.

DB: They defined extreme poverty as living on less than 1 dollar a day. Maria Jose Alcala co-authored a report called State of the World Population 2005. The report concludes that a key to reducing poverty is to promote gender equality -- women and men sharing the same rights and opportunities.

Maria Jose Alcala: . . . if you invest in equality for women and young people and you insure that every poor woman and adolescent girl has access to reproductive health, you're going to put the world on a faster track for prosperity and development.

JB: Alcala bases this idea on studies by the World Bank and others in the past decade, showing that societies that discriminate by gender tend to experience less rapid economic growth and poverty reduction than societies that treat males and females more equally.

DB: She said that, from 1965 to 1990, the so-called Asian Tigers -- Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore -- had rapid economic growth. International experts attribute part of this growth to policies that encouraged all girls as well as boys to go to school -- increased access to family planning -- and increased job opportunities for women.

Maria Jose Alcala: Progress for women is essentially progress for all.

JB: That's our show. We're Block and Byrd for Earth and Sky.
Author(s): Marc Airhart