Education is universally recognized as one of the key determinants of socio-economic security and welfare. The link between education and increased individual earnings has been widely documented: there is a large body of cross-country evidence that education enhances the employability, productivity and income earning capacity of individuals. The impact of educational attainment on these various socio-economic indicators has been shown to vary by region, sub-region, gender, age, by income levels, and other variables. In this paper, we focus on the socio-economic impact of educational attainment in Afghanistan. Afghanistan presents a fairly unique context for examining the association between education and the socio-economic variable discussed above. It is a conflict-affected country, with strong and rich cultural and religious traditions. It also has some of the worst developmental indicators and in the world. Using data from the National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment (NRVA) survey of 2007/08, authors investigate the extent to which the educational attainment of men and women is associated with greater economic welfare and less likelihood of being poor. The analysis is divided into four parts: part one looks education and other factors associated with household economic welfare and the probability of being poor
part two focuses on the education and other factors associated with women's participation in the labor force
part three looks at the association of mother's education with health-related outcomes of children
and part four looks at the association between educational attainment of girls and women, and their perceptions of well-being. Afghanistan's education indicators are among the worst in the world and girls and rural communities are particularly disadvantaged.