[Answered] Discuss how empowering women would help in population growth control?

Empowerment should be viewed as a process in which all voices are encouraged to be heard for ultimate goal of securing mutually beneficial solutions. Women empowerment is not only a solution to check population growth but is also important for overall progress of the society. India joined China as the second one billion strong nation. While the global population has increased three-fold in the 20^th century from 2 to 6 billion, the population of India has grown nearly 5 times from 230 million to one billion.

How women empowerment is an important tool to limit population growth?

1. Spouses, partners and mother-in-laws are central to make decisions for women on contraceptive choice and use.India needs to empower women so that they can decide on the size of the family and thus help the country curb the growth of its population. Improved women status would help in making better decisions towards small family choice.
2. Women are needed to be financially empowered to pay for needed family planning and health services. An economically empowered women is free to take decisions better for herself and her family.
3. The forces that have helped Kerala achieve population stabilisation with a crude birth rate of 15.9 per 1000 are two-child norm, universal primary education, emphasis on girl child, economic equality and better health care. Thus it is clearly evident that women empowerment would help in limiting population growth.
4. It is evident that when women are empowered to improve their own lives, they tend to have smaller families, and population growth slows. When population growth slows, governments and families can more easily invest in opportunities for women and girls, and women can more easily invest in opportunities for themselves and their families.
5. Education empowers women and girls to plan their lives. Not only are educated women better equipped to understand their reproductive health options, but they also have greater social and economic opportunities that may lead them to have smaller families. Studies have shown that literacy, especially reading comprehension, profoundly impacts family size.
6. When the status of women advances, population growth slows, and the quality of life improves for everyone. The lower social status of women in many places bars them from having control over their own lives and bodies.
7. If society limits a woman’s opportunities, parents with inadequate resources will not invest in a daughter’s future, and she will have no options beyond marriage and childbirth at a young age. In addition, women’s relative powerlessness to refuse sex or negotiate safe sex, especially in the context of marriage, leaves women vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies.
8. Women empowerment allow them to exercise their fundamental right to choose the number of children they will have, when, and with whom.

Capacity-building efforts should pay particular attention to the needs of women in order to ensure that their skills and experience are fully used in decision-making at all levels. The core themes of education for sustainability include lifelong learning, interdisciplinary education, partnerships, multicultural education and empowerment. Priority should be given to ensuring women’s and girls’ full and equal access to all levels of education and training.