A study of poverty and women's education

Poverty can be defined as a social phenomenon in which a section of the society is unable to fulfil even its basic necessities of life. Attempts have been made in all societies to define poverty, but all of them are conditioned by the vision of minimum or good life obtaining in society. Poverty entails lack of empowerment, lack of knowledge and lack of opportunities as well as lack of income and capital. Human Capital Theory asserts that education creates skills which facilitate higher levels of productivity amongst those who possess them in comparison with those who do not. Education, then, is costly but it brings associated benefits which can be compared with its costs in much the same way as happens with any investment project. India ranks 132 out of187 countries on the gender inequality index, lower than Pakistan (123) according to the United Nations Development Program‘s Human Development Report 2013. The purpose of this study is, first, to study the literacy status of women in Kadapa District of Andhra Pradesh. Kadapa is Drought Prone Area, the total district population living in rural areas constitutes 1, 903, 337, of which males and females represent 959, 693 and 943, 644 respectively. The sex ratio is 983 females per 1000 males. Literacy rate is 63.15% as per 2011 Census. Gender wise, male and female literacy stood at 74.72 and 51.49 per cent respectively. Poverty can be defined as a social phenomenon in which a section of the society is unable to fulfil even its basic necessities of life. Poverty is thus both a cause and an effect of insufficient access to completion of quality education.