Women’s education and political participation

Abstract

The paper empirically examined the relationship between education level and political participation of women. The indices of political participation include the following: membership of political party, voting in elections, occupation of political post, means of occupation of political post and level of occupation of political post. The results revealed that women of the South West region of Cameroon are fairly well exposed to formal education as only 4.1% of the sampled population had no formal education. The study revealed that the higher the level of women's formal education, the more their tendency to participate in politics in areas of voting in elections and occupation of political post either through elections or appointments at all levels of government. The study was guided by the following objectives; the first was to assess women’s political participation and decision making. Secondly, what the opportunities of women political participation the third objectives was to determine the level of opportunities women’s political participation and decision making. The researcher recommends that the government, civil society and women activists need to work towards sensitization and awareness creation among the community to realize the need of the Women to participate in politics and governance. The men need to realize the women’s need for political power and change the way they look at the women and the government should embark on activities which support women’s political x Initiatives. The researcher recommends these areas to be further studied including: a study that could analyzes the contribution of civil society organizations in promotion of women political participation and human rights, a study that could assess the policy gaps concerning gender equity in governance and politics for women empowerment and other study could be conducted in the field concerning implication of culture on women’s political participation and decision making.
Keywords: women, education, political participation

Full text

International Journal of Advanced Education and Research
65
International Journal of Advanced Education and Research
ISSN: 2455-5746
Impact Factor: RJIF 5.34
www.alleducationjournal.com
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22271/educatin.2018.v3.i6.15
Volume 3; Issue 6; November 2018; Page No. 65-71
Women’s education and political participation
Dr. Tapan Kumar Sahu1, Kusum Yadav2
1 Principal, S.D. College of Education, Barnala, Punjab, India
2 Research Scholar, Department of Education and Community Service, Punjabi University, Patiala, Punjab, India
Abstract
The paper empirically examined the relationship between education level and political participation of women. The indices of
political participation include the following: membership of political party, voting in elections, occupation of political post, means
of occupation of political post and level of occupation of political post. The results revealed that women of the South West region
of Cameroon are fairly well exposed to formal education as only 4.1% of the sampled population had no formal education. The
study revealed that the higher the level of women's formal education, the more their tendency to participate in politics in areas of
voting in elections and occupation of political post either through elections or appointments at all levels of government. The study
was guided by the following objectives; the first was to assess women’s political participation and decision making. Secondly,
what the opportunities of women political participation the third objectives was to determine the level of opportunities women’s
political participation and decision making. The researcher recommends that the government, civil society and women activists
need to work towards sensitization and awareness creation among the community to realize the need of the Women to participate
in politics and governance. The men need to realize the women’s need for political power and change the way they look at the
women and the government should embark on activities which support women’s political x Initiatives. The researcher recommends
these areas to be further studied including: a study that could analyzes the contribution of civil society organizations in promotion
of women political participation and human rights, a study that could assess the policy gaps concerning gender equity in
governance and politics for women empowerment and other study could be conducted in the field concerning implication of
culture on women’s political participation and decision making.
Keywords: women, education, political participation
Introduction
Politics is very important for many parties of human life.
Mostly it is imperative for the existence of statehood and the
way in which people interact-how they make decisions and
settle disputes. Because people live groups in groups, there is
a need to make decisions-about how power or available
resources to the group are to be shared out for example or how
conflicts which arise within the group are to be solved. The
study of politics is the study of the how such decisions are
made. It may also be the study of how such decisions should
be made. Thus, we can define politics in two ways; first
politics can be considered as the study of power and secondly
as the study of the conflicts resolutions (Bentley, robson,
grant, & robberts., 1995) [24]. To put in other words a modern
philosopher, Michael Oakeshott, who was attracted by the
original Greek roots of the word politiki, meaning the affairs
of the state, defined politics as a merely organization of the
running of the state (McNaughton, 2001) [29]. Politics relates
the power struggle of the state. It is thus, concerned with
power and the way in which power is distributed among the
society (or groups). Political participation in fact matters in
the life of every individual human being both men and
women. Recognizing the essence of the political participation
for every individual human being the United Nation (UN)
exerted its human rights core instruments and recognized it as
a fundamental political right. In this study, the paper will
focus on the women and political participation It is apparent
that women are one of the politically marginalized social
groups. They have no active role in the key positions within
the bureaucracy. They have few political representations in
parliament and cabinet. Although the equal participation of
men and women in the political affairs and decisions making
process of the country in all level.
Women’s Education and Political Participation
Women’s political participation: refers to women’s ability to
participate equally with men, at all stages, and in all aspects of
political life and decision making process. It seems evident
that formal education should be strongly associated with
political participation for women and for men. Indeed, the
American sociologists Burns, Schlozman and Verba assert, on
the basis of decades of research into the factors influencing
women and men’s engagement with politics in the USA, that
education is an‘especially powerful predictor of political
participation’ (2001:286). They identify a range of direct and
indirect effects that formal education has upon political
participation. Its direct effects include the acquisition of the
knowledge and communication skills useful for public debate,
and direct training in political analysis through courses with
current events content. Its indirect effects are many and

International Journal of Advanced Education and Research
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include the benefits of voluntary engagement in school
government, clubs, sports, and school newspapers; these
arenas provide young people with an early apprenticeship for
politics, where they can exercise leadership, develop civic
skills of cooperation and negotiation, and acquire bureaucratic
and organizational skills useful for political activity.
Education enhances other factors supporting political
engagement, such as access to high-income jobs that provide
the resources and contacts for political activity, and access to
non-political associations such as charitable organizations or
religious establishments that can be a recruitment ground for
political activity (ibid: 141-2).
In recent times, nations of the world have witnessed increased
discussions and debates on gender issues with emphasis on
women liberation, emancipation, empowerment, protection of
women rights, and women participation in politics among
others. In order to ensure women development in modem
democracies, governments, world organizations and various
stakeholders at different levels have made declarations that are
supposed to be binding on member States among which
include the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights,
which prohibit all forms of discriminations based on sex and
ensure the right to life, liberty and security (UNDP, 2005).
There is a wide variation between countries, however, in the
relationship between women’s education levels and their
representation in formal politics, and their participation in
other political activity. The United States, which outranks
other industrialized democracies in terms of the numbers of
women in higher education (and in the work force, and in
professional positions), has seen persistently low numbers of
women in formal politics, reaching an all-time high of just
14.3% of Congress in 2002 (Center for Voting and
Democracy, 2003). Uganda, Rwanda, and Mozambique,
among the poorest countries in the world with female adult
literacy levels of just 41, 60.2 and 28.7 percent respectively,
have parliaments in which between 25 to 30 percent of
legislators are women. This contrast suggests that the
connection between education and engagement in formal
representative politics is not directly observable, and invites us
to explore the nature of the relationship between women’s
education and political participation. This is done by
reviewing recent statistical analyses of the relationship
between these factors and variations in women’s participation
in formal politics around the world. The paper ends with a
consideration of the role of women’s education in advancing
their interests at the level of local government, which has seen
rising numbers of women participants in countries around the
world.
Political Participation
Political participation: refers the active involvement and
engagement by individuals both women and men with
political process that affect their lives. The act of active
engagements includes voting, standing for office, joining of
political party or to take part in the political campaigns of the
political parties and to exert influence in the decision making
process through public debate, and dialogue with the
representatives they elected or through their capacity to
organize themselves; or exercise public power by holding
public office at different levels of administrations- local,
regional, national and international.
Political participation matters a great deal for women as a
group and as individuals. Whether women work together to
protest gender-based injustices or whether they participate in
non-gender-specific associations and struggles, the most
important group benefit from political participation is
influence on decision-making to make public policies
sensitive to the needs of the group in question. For groups,
participation also builds social trust and capital, and provides
a form of democratic apprenticeship; it offers socialization in
the norms of reciprocity and cooperation, the capacity to gain
broader perspectives on particular problems in order to
develop a sense of the common good. For individuals,
political participation builds civic skills, while successful
lobbying can result in improvements in personal welfare and
status. Explanations for the very slow progress women have
made in gaining political office around the world have been
multi-causal, including: their lack of time for politics due to
their domestic obligations, their lack of socialization for
politics, their lower social capital and weaker asset base than
men owing to discrimination in schools and in the market,
their under representation in the jobs that favor political
careers, their marginalization within male-dominated parties,
their inability to overcome male and incumbent bias in certain
types of electoral systems (Randall, 1987; Matland and
Taylor, 1997; Rule, 1981).
Women’s political participation is most often measured in
terms of the numbers of women to be found in formal politics,
in positions of public office to which they have been elected.
This extremely crude measure is made even more so by the
tendency to limit it to the numbers of women in the main
legislative house at the national level, excluding not just
numbers of women in regional and local government, but
numbers of women elected as magistrates, members of the
boards of public bodies such as schools or health facilities,
and the like. The reasons for using this measure have to do
with simple convenience. There are significant data gaps on
numbers of women in local governments and other sub-
national elected bodies around the world, and there is such
wide variation in governance systems for sub-national
communities and public bodies that they are barely comparable.
Numbers of women in representative politics are not the best
indicator of the extent and intensity of women’s political
participation because there is no necessary relationship
between the two. Relatively large numbers of women were
found in politics in socialist countries in periods when
women’s independent civil society activity was suppressed
under single-party governments (Molyneux, 1994) [18].
Relatively large numbers of women are found in local
governments in some countries in spite of the fact that the
women’s movement can be weak at these levels – for instance
in France or Uganda. And India and the USA, with the largest
women’s movements in the world (in terms of the sheer
number and variety of women’s organizations) have some of
the lowest levels of women in national office.2 Numbers of
women active in women’s organizations, or at least numbers
of women’s organizations in a country, might be a better
indicator of levels of women’s political participation.
Women’s political participation is best understood more
broadly than numbers of women in office, and indeed, more

International Journal of Advanced Education and Research
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broadly than numbers of women’s organizations, as women
may express their political interests through participation in a
wide variety of political and civic associations. This definition
includes voting, campaigning for a party or supporting party
work through other means (e.g. policy development,
membership drives), contacting policy-makers directly by
writing or telephone, protest activities, getting involved in
organizations that take a stand in politics, taking part in
informal efforts to solve community problems, and serving in
a voluntary capacity on local governing boards such as school
or zoning boards. This definition is clearly culturally-specific;
notions of citizen lobbying of representatives or participating
in political campaigns apply best in democratic contexts that
lack violence and corruption in political competition
(particularly in electoral campaigns), and that have disciplined
parties with internal democracy, clear programmers and
positions. This narrow definition has also been criticized by
feminist political scientists as being overly focused on
individual political acts and for excluding the forms of public
engagement favored by women.
A recent cross-national study (146 countries) found that the
number of national women’s political organisations was
unrelated to gender inequality in political representation
(Kenworthy and Malami, 1999 This is an indication of a
pattern that appears in other studies of women’s political
participation: the longer women have had access to the
political sphere, the greater are the numbers of women in
politics – this suggests a role model effect that encourages
women to enter political activity, as well as a cultural effect
whereby the political sphere becomes less hostile to women
the longer it is exposed to them.
One study that shows the depressive effect of corruption and
political violence on women’s political engagement, even in
an electoral system that should favour women’s engagement –
a multi-member district. The difficulty with overly broad
definitions of political participation is that activities are hard
to measure, particularly acts of resistance in the private
sphere, and cross-nationally comparable data are simply not
available. Explorations and explanations of gender gaps in
political activity in other cultures must be sensitive to
differing opportunities available for political participation
given variations in political institutions and cultures.Given the
difficulties of measuring the quantity and nature of women’s
political participation cross-nationally, we fall back upon the
number of women in office, currently the only consistent and
comparable source of data showing variations in women’s
engagement in politics. Though far from an ideal indicator of
levels of women’s political engagement, it is not entirely
unrelated to the question of women’s relative political
effectiveness in any particular country. The presence of more
than average (currently the global average is about 15% of
lower houses - IPU 2003) numbers of women in politics
should indicate that some of the many obstacles to women’s
political participation have been overcome. Overcoming any
of these obstacles is to some extent contingent upon the
success of the women’s movement or other civil and political
associations in challenging the biases that differently select
women and men into social, economic, and political
institutions, and produce unequal and unjust treatment of
women once they do gain access. Therefore the number of
women in office must at least in part reflect the strength and
achievements of women’s political activism. Attentiveness to
the numbers of women in office is also not irrelevant to the
project of ensuring that participation in the public arena to
advance women’s interests. Though women in office are
almost always social and political elites lacking connections to
the women’s movement there is evidence from around the
world that women legislators, even when in an acute minority,
help to steer political debate in parties and legislatures to
issues of significance to women and children (Lijphart, 1991;
Rule and Hill, 1996; Mc Donagh, 2002; Thomas, 1994; Vega
and Firestone, 1995; Chattopadhyay and Duflo, 2001) [16, 5].
The right to political participation: refers to citizen’s rights to
seek to influence public affairs without any discrimination, to
seek decisions collectively and to choose their own
representatives organizations, to vote and be voted in
elections, to exercise political powers such as legislative
executive, judiciary and all other public administrative powers
and to influence the formulation and implementation of policy
at international, national, regional and local levels and have
freedom of democratic action, free from interference.
Women in local politics and education
It is in efforts to increase the numbers of women participating
in local politics that we see an influx of women to politics
with significantly lower endowments than men in human and
social capital and in material assets. Uganda’s 1997 Local
Government Act, which included provisions to ensure that
30% of local councils should be composed of women, initially
stipulated that a minimum educational achievement of a
secondary school completion certificate would be required of
any candidate for local government office. Protests from the
women’s movement on the grounds that this would exclude
most rural women from running for local office produced an
amendment reducing the educational requirement to primary
school completion. In India, the constitutional amendment that
stipulated the reservation of one third of local government
seats for women included no educational entry-point barriers
at all. In these two countries the educational achievements of
the large numbers of new female entrants to local government
do tend to be significantly lower than that of their male
colleagues (Chattopadhyay and Duflo 2001:15; Kudva, 2003;
Ahikire, 2003; Buch, 2000:12) [5, 1, 4], and indeed in India
significant numbers of women local government councilors
and chairpersons are not even literate. A sample of 1019 local
councilors in three Indian states (843 of the sample were
women) in a study by Nirmala Buch found that 51.9 % of the
women were illiterate compared to 18.7% of the men, with a
further 18.6% of the women claiming that they were literate
but lacking even a primary qualification, compared to 13.1%
of the men (Buch 2000:14) [4].
Quotas and reservations for women in national-level politics
are generally enjoyed by women who have long been active in
politics, have good contacts, elite family backgrounds, and
differ little from elite male politicians in being highly
educated and financially secure Women’s much lower
educational endowment than men, their relative under-
endowment in political skills acquired from party activity or
civic engagement in traditional rural societies has
understandably produced skepticism about their capacities to

International Journal of Advanced Education and Research
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govern effectively in these positions, let alone act in the
interests of women in generally. One observer sums up
expectations about women in local government in India: ‘The
general opinion was that the majority of rural women, being
illiterate, would be ignorant of the ways of manipulative
politics; intricate financial procedures and “deals” and
complicated development schemes and processes; that women
would be constrained by social norms and customs and
intimidated in the presence of elderly men and senior
relatives. Women not having been used to equality and the
exercise of rights would not be able to assert themselves or
occupy positions in the Panchayati Raj Institutions. In both,
journalists and researchers have produced conflicting reports
about women’s performance. Certainly many studies confirm
the negative expectations articulated by Kaushik. Women
councilors in India are seen as acting as surrogates for their
husbands; in Maharashtra they are dubbed ‘Proxy Pushpas’
and in Uttar Pradesh, ‘namesake members’ (Kudva,
2003:452). Women new to office, even in the chairing
position, are seen as subordinated to the Village Secretary (a
government official who can often be the only literate person
in the local office and therefore controls information and
accounts). Women suffer harassment by male councilors
(Mayaram, 1999; Mayaram and Pal, 1996) [14], and there are
many instances of illiterate women unwittingly colluding in
corrupt activities when manipulated into signing cheques or
doctored accounts statements (Kudva, 2003).
Evidence has also been found to show that women in local
councils, in spite of the formidable obstacles they face from
hostile male colleagues and government servants, manage to
influence local investments in public goods in ways that favor
other women. In West Bengal when women are in control of
local councils, there is a greater investment in drinking water
facilities, biogas projects (for cooking gas) and labor-intensive
public works projects employing women (Chattopadhyay and
Duflo 2001:19) [5]. Interestingly the West Bengal study
showed that women-headed local councils spend less on
informal education centers for children than do councils
headed by men, and male council chairs express greater
concern about teacher absenteeism in formal schools than do
women chairs. The researchers suggest that the negative effect
of women council leaders on children’s educational
investments by local councils is related to their own lack of
education (ibid: 20).
What are the levels of opportunities women’s political
participation?
 Democratic principles and good governance gave women a
role for the political participation.
 Educated women’s have shown that they have the will and
the capacity for leadership.
 The pressure of the Somali Civil Society and international
community.
 Women empowerment and awareness programmers.
 Women see themselves as an important power as they are
more than fifty percent of the Somali population.
In this part of the study the research question’s which
governed it was: What are the challenges facing women in
political decision making?
 Women’s decisions are ignored due to their minority in
decision making positions
 Women have no full participation because of their low self
-esteems.
 Women are lose their confidence and will, due to their lack
of political experiences which are based on traditional way
of living.
 Women are loyal for this reason men are not want to them.
They opposed women to hold a public positions and if they
hold they don’t give support rather than resists.
 Since males are dominant, women lacked communications
due to social stigma.
 Lack of support by the male members of the house of
parliament and the council of elders
 The miss conception and miss perception among the elders
about the roles of women in either house.
 The prevailing traditions and cultures which promote male
dominance in decision making.
 Cultural tendencies to keep women to be submissive to the
men.
 The lack of acceptance by men for women to be involved
in politics of the country and belief that women do not
deserve political positions and the irony that the women do
not themselves have the political will much as they are not
supported by fellow women and their counter party males.
 Additionally, “women lack the support in both of her two
clans-birth and married clans”
How to empower women to participate in the policies and
decision making process?
 The appreciation of women’s political will and support
from the families as well as the government.
 The proper conception and interpretation of the
constitution and other legal policies relating to the rights of
all the genders. Good and understanding from the
community concerning the need of the women to
participate in decision making and politics.
 Government’s commitment towards creating a conducive
environment for the inclusion of women in politics and
decision making and the implementation of the both
gender policy and political ambitions on the side of
women to take up the leadership tasks.
 Empowerment of women to be at par with men, in terms of
the capacity in order to use the rights and privilege due to
them and make use of the good offices and gain access to
and control of the available resources like in economic,
social, political, religious and cultural fields to promote
functional democracy, and true justice for advancement of
women’s interests for governance. Without active
participation of women’s perspectives at all level in
decision making, and other political activities, the goals of
equality and development cannot be achieved.
 A further implication is that women need to develop

International Journal of Advanced Education and Research
69
among other things leadership skills, positive self-esteem
and confidence, encourage and support one another, and
develop strong assertive options, the building and
strengthen solidarity among women through information,
education and sensitization activities and advocacy at all
levels to enable women to influence political, economic,
social decisions, processes and systems are among the
affirmative actions that need to be undertaken seriously by
the government.
 It further implies the need for building a strong women’s
movement and civil society structures to raise awareness
of the need to consider women’s political initiatives and
creating enabling environment that can influence the
direction of politics and development in favour of women
priority tailored towards their political and social needs.
Facts and figures: Leadership and political participation
Women in parliaments
 Only 22.8 per cent of all national parliamentarians were
women as of June 2016, a slow increase from 11.3 per cent
in 1995.
 As of October 2017, 11 women are serving as Head of
State and 12 are serving as Head of Government.
 Rwanda had the highest number of women
parliamentarians worldwide. Women there have won 63.8
per cent of seats in the lower house.
 Globally, there are 38 States in which women account for
less than 10 per cent of parliamentarians in single or lower
houses, as of June 2016, including 4 chambers with no
women at all.
Across regions
 Wide variations remain in the average percentages of
women parliamentarians in each region. As of June 2017,
these were (single, lower and upper houses combined):
Nordic countries, 41.7 per cent; Americas, 28.1 per cent;
Europe including Nordic countries, 26.5 per cent; Europe
excluding Nordic countries, 25.3 per cent; sub-Saharan
Africa, 23.6 per cent; Asia, 19.4 per cent; Arab States, 17.4
per cent; and the Pacific, 17.4 per cent.
Other domains of government
 As of January 2017, only 18.3 per cent of government
ministers were women; the most commonly held portfolio
by women ministers is environment, natural resources, and
energy, followed by social sectors, such as social affairs,
education and the family.
 The global proportion of women elected to local
government is currently unknown, constituting a major
knowledge gap.
 Women’s representation in local governments can make a
difference. Research on panchayats (local councils) in
India discovered that the number of drinking water
projects in areas with women-led councils was 62 per cent
higher than in those with men-led councils. In Norway, a
direct causal relationship between the presence of women
in municipal councils and childcare coverage was found.
Expanding participation
As of June 2017, only 2 countries have 50 per cent or more
women in parliament in single or lower houses: Rwanda with
61.3 per cent and Bolivia with 53.1 per cent; but a greater
number of countries have reached 30 per cent or more. As of
June 2017, 46 single or lower houses were composed of 30
per cent or more women, including 19 countries in Europe, 13
in Sub-Saharan Africa, 11 in Latin America have applied
some form of quotas - either legislative candidate quotas or
reserved seats - opening space for women's political
participation in national parliaments. Gender balance in
political participation and decision-making is the
internationally agreed target set in the Beijing Declaration and
Platform for Action.
There is established and growing evidence that women's
leadership in political decision-making processes improves
them. Women demonstrate political leadership by working
across party lines through parliamentary women's caucuses -
even in the most politically combative environments - and by
championing issues of gender equality, such as the elimination
of gender-based violence, parental leave and childcare,
pensions, gender-equality laws and electoral reform.
Conclusions
This paper set out to review evidence about the relationship
between women’s education and political participation, with a
view to assessing whether more education for women can be
seen to shift their levels of engagement in politics. Ideally,
higher levels of political participation by greater numbers of
women should result in more attention to gender-equity in
social and economic policy, and thus promote better lives for
women generally. Given the evidence above, it is difficult to
assert conclusively that more and better education makes
women more active in politics. Indeed, in some countries the
very opposite has been found, where educated, affluent
women show indifference to politics or a high degree of
cynicism as to the effectiveness of any kind of political
engagement (CENWOR, 1994, cited in Jayaweera, 1997:421)
[9].
The ways in which women and men are differently selected
into, and treated within, political institutions are strongly
influenced by culture. Ironically, strong kinship and
patronage-based systems may be able to accept greater
numbers of women in politics on the grounds of their family
status than can systems based upon individual merit that
disguise male biases in political institutions. However, such
systems will favor only elite women, and only in small
numbers.
Perhaps what these inconclusive findings and observations
show more than anything else is that political institutions may
differ in some key respects from other social institutions in the
ways that they select participants. Individual and group
political skills and political resources are obviously enhanced
by endowments of human capital (chief among them
education) as well as material resources. But political skills
and resources can come from other sources: charisma, social
capital, and the right ideas at the right time can override the
best education or the fattest campaign treasure chest and can
enable a leader to mobilize followers and capture power. Anne
Phillips (1991:78) has talked about the ‘relative autonomy’ of
the political sphere in this respect -- although the political
arena replicates class and gender biases in society, it can also

International Journal of Advanced Education and Research
70
provide an arena for transgressing social conventions and for
experimentation in which unlikely candidates – women, or
men from socially excluded groups, men without education or
capital – can occasionally rise to leadership positions or
galvanize effective social movements.
The numbers of women who are successful in electoral
contests in contexts lacking electoral systems that favor
diversity or special measures promoting their candidacies
(quotas and reservations) are still so very small that it is
misleading to try to draw connections between their political
success and broad social developments.
But, as we know, the number of women in formal politics is
not the best measure of women’s political participation. More
systematic study of other types of political participation by
women, such as voting behavior, lobbying activity,
associational activity, and membership of political parties, is
needed to illuminate the factors promoting higher rates of
women’s engagement in these activities. Cross-national
comparative work on these features of political engagement is
in its infancy, but these types of political participation are
more likely to be more closely related to women’s educational
levels than is the number of legislative seats won by women.
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