Education—particularly secondary and higher education—helps
women adopt a more modern world view and to think independently.
Educated women appear to be more empowered to
avoid pregnancies that they do not feel prepared for. They are
more likely to report that they wanted their current pregnancy
and less likely to say that they wanted it later or not at all. In Lebanon,
for example, pregnant women with 12 or more years of
schooling are less than half as likely as those with some primary
or no education to report their pregnancy as unintended (see
Figure 5). In Palestine, 10 percent of pregnant women with 12 or
more years of schooling said they had not wanted their pregnancy
at all, compared with 22 percent of those with less than
six years of schooling. Among more-educated Yemeni women
who reported an unintended pregnancy, all said the pregnancy
was mistimed rather than unwanted.
Education opens more opportunities for women to work outside
their homes and earn incomes. Women who work outside the
home and contribute to the household income are more likely to
feel confident about making decisions about their lives, including
whether to use contraception. PAPFAM surveys show that
married women who are employed are less likely to be pregnant.
But the surveys reveal a mixed pattern among countries on the
planning status of women’s pregnancies. In Algeria, Lebanon,
Palestine, and Syria, pregnant women who were employed were
more likely than women who were not employed to say they
wanted their pregnancy when it occurred. But the reverse was
true in Morocco and Yemen. And in Egypt, employed women
were twice as likely as women who were not employed to report
their pregnancy as not wanted at all.