Gendered Disruptions in Human Development: Women’s Education and HDI Trends in Afghanistan, 1990–2023
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.63222/pijar.v3i1.53Keywords:
Women’s education, Human Development Index, Afghanistan, Capabilities approachAbstract
Women’s education is widely recognised as a core condition of human development, yet its developmental effects remain fragile where educational rights are politically contingent. This article examines how shifts in women’s access to education correspond with Afghanistan’s Human Development Index (HDI) trajectory from 1990 to 2023. Methodologically, it adopts a qualitative longitudinal case study combining descriptive HDI trend analysis with process tracing and documentary evidence from UN agencies, the World Bank, and international human rights organisations. The analysis shows that Afghanistan’s HDI rose from 0.284 in 1990 to 0.480 in 2014, reflecting partial development gains during periods of educational expansion and post-2001 reconstruction. However, these gains remained fragile. Following the 2021 political rupture, HDI declined to 0.473, while mean years of schooling fell from 3.0 in 2021 to 2.5 in 2022–2023. Although HDI partially recovered to 0.496 in 2023, with expected years of schooling around 10.8 and life expectancy reaching 66.0 years, this apparent stabilisation did not indicate substantive recovery in women’s capabilities. Instead, continued restrictions on secondary and higher education suggest a widening gap between aggregate development indicators and gendered access to agency, human capital formation, and public participation. The article argues that women’s education should be understood as a structural condition of sustainable human development in fragile and conflict-affected contexts.
References
I. Robeyns, "The capability approach: A theoretical survey," Journal of Human Development, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 93–117, 2005, doi: 10.1080/146498805200034266.
S. Fukuda-Parr, "The human development paradigm: Operationalizing Sen’s ideas on capabilities," Feminist Economics, vol. 9, nos. 2–3, pp. 301–317, 2003, doi: 10.1080/1354570022000077980.
H. Malikyar, "Women’s issues in the recent Afghan revolutionary movements," Cahiers d’études sur la Méditerranée orientale et le monde turco-iranien, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 315–325, 1995. [Online]. Available: https://www.persee.fr/doc/cemot_0764-9878_1995_num_20_1_1292
A. M. E. Jones, "Afghanistan on the educational road to access and equity," Asia Pacific Journal of Education, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 277–290, 2008, doi: 10.1080/02188790802267423.
C. Kissane, "The way forward for girls’ education in Afghanistan," Journal of International Women’s Studies, vol. 13, no. 4, Art. 2, 2012. [Online]. Available: https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol13/iss4/2
Human Rights Watch, "Afghanistan," in World Report 2025, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2025/country-chapters/afghanistan
S. Qazi Zada and M. Z. Qazi Zada, "The Taliban and women’s human rights in Afghanistan: The way forward," The International Journal of Human Rights, vol. 28, no. 10, pp. 1687–1722, 2024, doi: 10.1080/13642987.2024.2369584.
UN Women, "Women in Afghanistan: From almost everywhere to almost nowhere," Aug. 2023. [Online]. Available: https://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/feature-story/2023/08/women-in-afghanistan-from-almost-everywhere-to-almost-nowhere
A. W. Popalzay, "Gender apartheid in education: The Taliban’s educational restrictions and their consequences for Afghan women and girls," Journal of Gender Studies, 2025, doi: 10.1080/09589236.2025.2521683.
UNESCO, The Right to Education: What’s at Stake in Afghanistan? A 20-Year Review, ED/PLS/EDP/2021/062 Rev. 2, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000378911
World Bank, Afghanistan Development Update: Navigating a Sea of Uncertainty, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/328861579623579913/pdf/Afghanistan-Development-Update-Navigating-a-Sea-of-Uncertainty.pdf
E. Lyons, "Household and student survey-based evidence on girls’ secondary education in Afghanistan," Social Sciences & Humanities Open, vol. 8, Art. 100533, 2023, doi: 10.1016/j.ssaho.2023.100533.
N. Kabeer, "Gender equality and women’s empowerment: A critical analysis of the third Millennium Development Goal," Gender & Development, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 13–24, 2005, doi: 10.1080/13552070512331332273.
G. Ranis, F. Stewart, and E. Samman, "Human development: Beyond the Human Development Index," Journal of Human Development, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 323–358, 2006, doi: 10.1080/14649880600815917.
United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 1990: Concept and Measurement of Human Development. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1990. [Online]. Available: https://hdr.undp.org/content/human-development-report-1990
A. Sen, Development as Freedom. New York, NY, USA: Anchor Books, 1999.
United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2023/24: Breaking the Gridlock—Reimagining Cooperation in a Polarized World, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://hdr.undp.org/content/human-development-report-2023-24
R. J. Barro and J.-W. Lee, "A new data set of educational attainment in the world, 1950–2010," Journal of Development Economics, vol. 104, pp. 184–198, 2013, doi: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2012.10.001.
E. A. Hanushek and L. Woessmann, "The economic impact of educational quality," in Handbook of International Development and Education, P. Dixon, S. Humble, and C. Counihan, Eds. Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015, pp. 6–26.
World Bank, Missed Opportunities: The High Cost of Not Educating Girls, 2018. [Online]. Available: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/29956
United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2019: Beyond Income, Beyond Averages, Beyond Today—Inequalities in Human Development in the 21st Century, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://hdr.undp.org/system/files/documents/hdr2019.pdf
I. Permanyer, "A critical assessment of the UNDP’s Gender Inequality Index," Feminist Economics, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 1–32, 2013, doi: 10.1080/13545701.2013.769687.
D. Collier, "Understanding process tracing," PS: Political Science & Politics, vol. 44, no. 4, pp. 823–830, 2011, doi: 10.1017/S1049096511001429.
United Nations Development Programme, "Human Development Index (HDI)," Human Development Reports Data Center, n.d. [Online]. Available: https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index. Accessed: Jan. 8, 2026.
Human Rights Watch, Humanity Denied: Systematic Denial of Women’s Rights in Afghanistan, 2001. [Online]. Available: https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/afghan3/
United Nations Economic and Social Council, "Situation of women and girls in Afghanistan," Resolution 1999/14, 1999. [Online]. Available: https://www.un.org/esa/documents/ecosoc/res/1999/eres1999-14.htm
Inter-Parliamentary Union, "Women in national parliaments: Monthly ranking," Mar. 2021. [Online]. Available: https://data.ipu.org/women-ranking
European Parliamentary Research Service, The Situation in Afghanistan: Essential Benchmarks for EU Engagement, Briefing PE 698.019, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/EPRS_BRI(2021)698019
European Parliamentary Research Service, Women’s Rights in Afghanistan: An Ongoing Battle, Briefing PE 747.084, 2023. [Online]. Available: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2023/747084/EPRS_BRI(2023)747084_EN.pdf
UNESCO, Teaching and Learning: Achieving Quality for All, EFA Global Monitoring Report 2013/4, 2014. [Online]. Available: https://reliefweb.int/report/world/education-all-global-monitoring-report-2014-teaching-and-learning-achieving-quality-all
World Bank, Afghanistan Development Update: Towards Economic Stabilization and Recovery, 2022. [Online]. Available: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/37290
A. Alizada, "Girls education in Afghanistan at risk from U.S. withdrawal," Time, Jul. 7, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://time.com/6078072/afghanistan-withdrawal-taliban-girls-education/
E. Graham-Harrison, "Taliban ban girls from secondary education in Afghanistan," The Guardian, Sep. 17, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/17/taliban-ban-girls-from-secondary-education-in-afghanistan
D. Hadid, "‘The Taliban took our last hope’: College education is banned for women in Afghanistan," NPR, Dec. 20, 2022. [Online]. Available: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/12/20/1144502320/the-taliban-took-our-last-hope-college-education-is-banned-for-women-in-afghanistan
A. Q. Mohammadi, A. Neyazi, D. Habibi, Q. Mehmood, M. Neyazi, and M. D. Griffiths, "Female education ban by the Taliban: A descriptive survey study on suicidal ideation, mental health, and health-related quality of life among girls in Afghanistan," Journal of Public Health, vol. 46, no. 3, pp. e439–e447, 2024, doi: 10.1093/pubmed/fdae111.
World Bank, Afghanistan Development Update: December 2024, Dec. 2024. [Online]. Available: https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/126f9684f0c7ff20248c0c7bf45ccccd-0310012024/original/Afghanistan-Development-Update-December-2024-Final.pdf
M. Al-Shammari, Women’s Education: Cultural and Religious Solutions from the Heart of Afghanistan, Middle East Council on Global Affairs, Dec. 2023. [Online]. Available: https://mecouncil.org/publication/womens-education-cultural-and-religious-solutions-from-the-heart-of-afghanistan/
S. Amin and T. Clausen, Silencing Half the Population: The Tragic Denial of Girls’ and Women’s Right to Education in Afghanistan, Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, 2023. [Online]. Available: https://shop.freiheit.org/download/P2%401516/751264/PP_Right%20to%20education%20for%20Afghan%20girls%20and%20woman_230814_B.pdf
Amnesty International UK, "Women’s rights in Afghanistan: A brief history," 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.amnesty.org.uk/womens-rights-afghanistan-history
A. Azoulay, "Afghanistan: Four years on, 2.2 million girls still banned from school," UNESCO, Aug. 14, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/afghanistan-four-years-22-million-girls-still-banned-school
M. Qazizada, "The continuing ban on girls’ education in Afghanistan," Devpolicy Blog, Mar. 27, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://devpolicy.org/the-continuing-ban-on-girls-education-in-afghanistan-20250327/
Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Education under Attack 2024, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://protectingeducation.org/publication/education-under-attack-2024/
S. M. Navazi, "The impact of educational exclusion on Afghanistan’s human development: A geopolitical perspective," Journal of International Relations and Foreign Policy, vol. 12, pp. 15–27, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://jirfp.thebrpi.org/journals/jirfp/Vol_12_2024/2.pdf
H. A. Patrinos, R. B. Kattan, and R. Najam, "Afghanistan shows what investing in women’s education—or divesting—can do to an economy," The Conversation, Jan. 3, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://theconversation.com/afghanistan-shows-what-investing-in-womens-education-or-divesting-can-do-to-an-economy-244398
A. R. Rahmany, "Youth in crossfire: Political motives behind the Taliban’s ban on women’s education in Afghanistan," International Journal for Multidisciplinary Research, vol. 7, no. 3, May–Jun. 2025, doi: 10.36948/ijfmr.2025.v07i03.48116.
C. Recknagel, "Afghanistan: Most children lack schooling," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Jan. 9, 1999. [Online]. Available: https://www.rferl.org/a/1090286.html
UN Women, UN Women Afghanistan Country Programme Document 2015–2017, 2015. [Online]. Available: https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/Executive%20Board/2015/AS%2015/UN%20Women%20Afghanistan%20Programme-PDF.pdf
UN Women, "Nearly eight out of 10 young Afghan women are excluded from education, jobs, and training," Press Release, Jun. 17, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/press-release/2025/06/nearly-eight-out-of-10-young-afghan-women-are-excluded-from-education-jobs-and-training
UNESCO and UNICEF, Afghanistan Education Situation Report 2025, Oct. 16, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://www.unicef.org/afghanistan/documents/afghanistan-education-situation-report-2025
UNESCO, "Banned from education: A review of the right to education in Afghanistan," Apr. 3, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/banned-education-review-right-education-afghanistan
UNICEF, "Girls’ education," n.d. [Online]. Available: https://www.unicef.org/education/girls-education. Accessed: Jan. 8, 2026.
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, "Human rights update: February–April 2023," ReliefWeb, May 9, 2023. [Online]. Available: https://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/unama-human-rights-update-february-april-2023-en
United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2010: The Real Wealth of Nations—Pathways to Human Development, 2010. [Online]. Available: https://hdr.undp.org/content/human-development-report-2010
World Bank, "Empowering girls through education," Oct. 10, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2024/10/10/empowering-girls-through-education
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Shamila Saba (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
