Many of you know by now that I place a high premium on education, especially education for girls and women in developing countries since they, often, are the driving force of stopping the cycle of poverty. Another motivator? Seeing strong women in leadership positions.

The Harvard Gazette just posted an article on this subject based on a new research paper co-authored by Harvard Kennedy School Professor Rohini Pande. The research paper finds that the system designating female leaders for selected village councils in India has resulted in substantive gains for girls in those villages — both in terms of aspirations and educational outcomes. Dr. Pande’s research focuses on the economic analysis of the politics and consequences of different forms of redistribution, principally in developing countries.

“These results show that laws can help create role models by opening opportunities that were previously unavailable to a group, and this increased opportunity does not diminish the aspirations of those outside the group,” the authors argue in this article. “Our study shows that, in the Indian context, the positive effect of exposure to a female leader dominated any possible backlash, probably because it gave women a chance to demonstrate that they are capable leaders. And, perhaps most importantly, our study establishes that the role model effect reaches beyond the realm of aspirations into the concrete, with real educational and time-use impacts.”

But here is my question to you – I was speaking with a friend in a developing country and she said focusing on girls and women can be a disservice to the country. Her argument is that by discriminating against boys and men in terms of education, the ones who will do most of the work and bring in more of the money to their household, we’re actually harming their prospects of getting out of poverty and achieve a living wage status as a household. You know what, I never really thought of it that way. So I let the information sink in and, you know what, I disagree with my friend.

Research has shown, time after time, that educating girls and women reaps many rewards on many levels. But I’m curious – what do you think? Are you in agreement or do you think our focus is mis-guided?

~Megy