Image from UNICEF Bangladesh, https://www.unicef.org/bangladesh/education.html
Woman’s access to education has been proven to drop birth rates “the difference between a woman with no years of schooling and with 12 years of schooling is almost four to five children per woman.” (Winthrop, 2016) This drop has a stabilizing effect by slowing the indefinite amount of people reliant on a limited food system.
By looking specifically at Bangladesh we can see that the projections of population growth would put an impossible strain on the countries already struggling food system. ‘In short, the demand for food grains would increase by a significant margin, but resources needed for growing food grains, such as land and water, would become scarcer.’ (Faisal, 2004)
Improvement in Bangladesh woman’s education has proven to be successful by implementing the following strategies. A government run Food for School program and garment factories that provide job opportunities for higher levels of education. Through this process, levels of adolescent girls getting married and having children at an early age has decreased creating a stabilizing feedback loop for issues of worsening food scarcity issues. It has also caused a systemic reaction in the improved health of children and mothers, the country’s ability to address sustainable agriculture, and avoid conflict on a national and international level.
If these principles could be applied to other countries in a similar position of food scarcity these same stabilizing feedback loops could be seen and the resources available to us on a global level could continue to support populations.