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Exploring the dynamics of female rural-urban

migration for secondary education in Ethiopia

Louise Yorke, Robbie Gilligan & Eyerusalem Alemu

To cite this article: Louise Yorke, Robbie Gilligan & Eyerusalem Alemu (2023) Exploring
the dynamics of female rural-urban migration for secondary education in Ethiopia,
Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 53:4, 693-709, DOI:
10.1080/03057925.2021.1951665

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2021.1951665

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COMPARE, 2023
VOL. 53, NO. 4, 693–709
https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2021.1951665

Exploring the dynamics of female rural-urban migration for

secondary education in Ethiopia
a b
Louise Yorke , Robbie Gilligan and Eyerusalem Alemuc
a
REAL Centre, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England, UK; bSchool of Social
Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland; cCARE International, Hawassa, Ethiopia

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Based on ethnographic fieldwork, we explore the rural-urban Girls’ secondary education;
migration of 27 girls and young women who leave their rural female rural-urban
communities and move to the city to pursue their secondary edu­ migration; marriage;
empowerment; Ethiopia
cation, in the ethnically diverse Southern Region of Ethiopia. We
consider the nature and extent of the inequalities that they face in
rural areas which limit their education opportunities and outcomes
and underpin their expected entry into marriage. We compare their
experiences in their rural communities with their lives in the city,
where they have greater access to resources and greater freedom
and decision-making power and the opportunity to continue their
secondary education, although their futures are still uncertain.
Through our analysis we reveal some of the tensions between the
promise of girls’ secondary education promoted at the international
and national level and the lived realities of rural girls and women,
many of whom are unable to realise this promise.

Introduction
Across many countries in the Global South, including Ethiopia, attention is turning to
girls’ secondary education, which is positioned as a key policy tool for female empower­
ment and is linked with a number of the Sustainable Development Goals (e.g. SDG4,
SDG5). Beyond the benefits of primary education alone, secondary education is asso­
ciated with even greater advantages for girls, including increased earnings over the
lifetime and improved health and social outcomes (Joshi and Verspoor 2012; Rihani
2006). Yet, despite the intended benefits of girls’ secondary education, the vast majority
of girls in Ethiopia do not reach secondary school, particularly those living in rural areas
(CSA 2016; MoE 2019; Mulugeta 2004). In addition to the limited number of secondary
schools and the poor quality of education available in rural areas, girls must also contend
with discriminatory socio-cultural factors that underpin and perpetuate the inequalities
that impact their opportunities and outcomes. In particular, the expected entry of girls
and young women into marriage is understood as one of the biggest challenges to their
education (Pankhurst, Tiumelissan, and Chuta 2016). Therefore, while the possibility of
a different future for rural girls and women through secondary education is promoted at

CONTACT Louise Yorke [email protected] REAL Centre, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge,
Cambridge, UK.
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any med­
ium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
694 L. YORKE ET AL.

the international and national level, the reality of the significant challenges girls and
young women face at the local level means that most rural girls and young women are
unable to realise this promise.
Against this backdrop, female rural-urban migration for education has increased in
Ethiopia in recent years (Bundervoet 2018; De Regt and Mihret 2020; Erulkar et al.
2006; Schewel and Fransen 2018). More generally, research has shown how increasing
access to formal education across a range of countries in the Global South in recent
decades, alongside growing rural-urban inequalities, is a significant factor attracting
young people to the city in the hope of achieving better futures (Boyden 2013; Crivello
2011; Erulkar et al. 2006; Hashim 2007; Schewel and Fransen 2018). For rural girls and
young women, rural-urban migration provides the possibility to escape the barriers
they face in their sending communities that limit their opportunities and outcomes and
to pursue their education in the city. However, while there is some evidence to suggest
that the phenomenon of rural-urban migration for education is increasing, research in
this area remains limited, especially in the context of Ethiopia (Schewel and Fransen
2018). Specifically, our understanding of the linkages between girls’ secondary educa­
tion and increasing female rural-urban migration to date is inadequate. Exploring the
migration of girls and young women who move to the city to pursue their secondary
education is, therefore, an important area of research. Understanding this phenomenon
from the perspectives of female rural-urban migrants is particularly pertinent and can
help to provide important insights into the nature and extent of inequalities they face in
their rural communities, and how they navigate these constraints through rural-urban
migration.
In this article, we explore the education and migration pathways of 27 girls from
different rural communities in Southern Ethiopia, who were successful in delaying
marriage, moving to a nearby city and pursuing formal secondary education. Drawing
on Kabeer’s (1999) framework of empowerment, we consider the nature and extent of the
inequalities and constraints that girls and young women face in their rural communities
and how these are underpinned by wider inequalities across the rural-urban divide. We
explore how their unequal access to resources and their inability to exercise their agency
limit their education and opportunities. We take into account how, in the context of the
limited economic opportunities that are available for girls and young women in rural
areas, expectations for girls’ entry into marriage persist, despite girls’ increasing educa­
tional access. We show how the ability of participants to challenge these inequalities is
limited and, for the participants in this study, it is only through migration that they can
escape these constraints and pursue their secondary education.
In summary, our article contributes to a richer understanding of the nature and extent
of the inequalities that girls face in pursuing their secondary education in rural areas.
Comparing the lives of rural girls and young women in their rural communities before
they migrate with their lives in the city helps to reveal how these inequalities are under­
pinned by wider structural factors, which, we argue, are often overlooked when it comes
to efforts to promote rural girls’ secondary education. Our analysis therefore highlights
the tensions between the promise of girls’ secondary education promoted at the inter­
national and national level, and the reality of the difficulties that rural girls and young
women face in realising this promise.
 COMPARE: A JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION 695

In the next section, we provide an overview of the context of girls’ secondary educa­
tion, including how it is positioned as a policy tool for gender equality and development
at the national level. We discuss some of the main barriers that rural girls face in pursuing
their education in their communities, including socio-cultural expectations for child
marriage. We then provide an overview of existing evidence related to female rural-urban
migration in Ethiopia. Throughout this article, we use the term ‘secondary education’ to
refer to general secondary education in Ethiopia, which includes grade nine and grade
ten. We use the term ‘child marriage’ to refer to marriage before the age of eighteen
(UNICEF 2014). In our review of the literature, we made efforts to include as many
authors as possible from Ethiopia in particular and also from the Global South and
consulted databases including the African Education Research Database and the Addis
Ababa University database.

The promise of girls’ secondary education promoted by the government

In Ethiopia, as in many other developing countries, girls’ education is positioned as a key
policy tool for women’s empowerment, reducing child marriage and improving gender
equality more broadly (NPC 2016). While there have been significant gains in girls’ access
to primary education in Ethiopia in recent decades (MoE 2019), attention is now turning
to girls’ upper primary education and transition to secondary education (Joshi and
Verspoor 2012; World Bank 2018). Increasing girls’ access to secondary education is
linked to Ethiopia’s modernisation project and the ambitious development goals of
achieving lower-middle-income status by 2025 (NPC 2016; Joshi and Verspoor 2012;
Verspoor 2008; Wodon et al. 2017). According to the government’s main development
strategy, encouraging girls’ participation in formal education and employment will
enable girls and women to leave behind traditional roles characterised by marriage and
motherhood, which are seen as incompatible with the government’s vision for develop­
ment and pursue modern pathways defined by paid employment and delayed marriage
(Abebe 2008; Crivello, Boyden, and Pankhurst 2019). The government’s approach to
gender equality and women’s empowerment is mainly focused on achieving equality in
certain domains of society (e.g. education, employment) and providing women with
freedom of choice (Crivello, Boyden, and Pankhurst 2019; Enyew and Mihrete 2018).
Our contention, however, is that inadequate attention is given to the structural con­
straints that limit the experiences and outcomes of rural girls and women in particular.
Promoting girls’ education and eliminating child marriage are often seen as comple­
mentary objectives, both within Ethiopia and in the wider international arena. Ethiopia
continues to have one of the highest rates of child marriage in Sub-Saharan Africa with
almost half of girls and young women married by the age of eighteen years old (CSA
2016). Substantial efforts have been made by the government towards eradicating child
marriage by 2030, including the introduction of a law that prohibits marriage before the
age of eighteen years, and various plans, which guide approaches to eliminating child
marriage (e.g. MoWA 2006; MoWCYA 2013). However, the Ethiopian government
primarily attributes the continued practice of child marriage to the ‘low level of societal
consciousness and awareness and deep rooted and imbalanced gender relations’
(MoWCYA 2013, 9). The government’s understanding of the causes of child marriage
in turn influences the strategies that are pursued. In addition to improving girls’
696 L. YORKE ET AL.

education, other strategies employed to address child marriage, generally focus on

awareness-raising campaigns, the promotion of positive role models and encouraging
girls’ participation in girls’ clubs to counter these socio-cultural factors (e.g. World Bank
2018). The structural inequalities that underpin girls’ limited opportunities and out­
comes are frequently overlooked. In this context, those who are successful are often
conceived of as girls who challenge their family, community and traditions, and ulti­
mately avoid marriage, while girls who fail to do so are often considered to be unsuccess­
ful (Bessa 2019; Khoja-Moolji 2016). This narrative suggests that girls and their families
are able to choose better futures rather than the fact that their choices represent a rational
response to the very real constraints they face within rural communities and their choices
may reflect the least worst or most strategic option in such circumstances (Abebe 2008;
Archambault 2011; Boyden and Zharkevich 2018; Grieve 2016).

Barriers to girls’ secondary education in rural areas

Due to the government’s overemphasis on gender parity and freedom of choice, little has
changed in terms of the daily lives of the vast majority of girls and women living in rural
Ethiopia (Yorke, Rose, and Pankhurst 2021). Less than half of all girls in Ethiopia
successfully complete basic primary education and enter into secondary schools, while
rural girls are much less likely than urban girls to be enrolled in secondary school (CSA
2016; MoE 2019). In addition to a lack of secondary schools and a lower quality of
education available in rural areas, girls must also contend with a range of socio-cultural
factors, which limit their education experiences and outcomes (see Chuta 2013). For
instance, even for girls who are enrolled in education, as they get older, they must balance
an ever-increasing burden of domestic work responsibilities, which in turn, significantly
limits their attendance and progression and subsequent achievement (Alemu et al. 2008).
In particular, the pressure to enter into marriage is often cited as one of the biggest
demand-side barriers to rural girls’ education and, critically, the age of entry into
secondary school coincides with their expected age of entry into marriage (Camfield
and Tafere 2011; Wodon et al. 2017; World Bank 2018). In spite of the efforts made to
eradicate child marriage, progress in this direction has been slow and uneven, especially
in rural areas where girls often enter into marriage much earlier than their urban
counterparts (CSA 2016).
Important empirical research has highlighted the complexity of child marriage and the
range of economic, cultural and political factors that contribute to its continued practice
(e.g. Alemu 2008; Chuta and Morrow 2015; Pankhurst, Tiumelissan, and Chuta 2016).
Yet one of the factors often overlooked in efforts to promote girls’ education and reduce
child marriage is the fact that securing formal employment beyond secondary school in
Ethiopia is increasingly difficult. In general, the lack of viable employment opportunities
for young people, means that more and more educated youth are locked out of hopeful
futures (Abebe 2008; Boyden 2013; Boyden and Zharkevich 2018; Mains 2011). Formal
employment opportunities are even more limited for girls and young women, especially
those living in rural areas, who are least likely to secure formal employment – regardless
of their level of education – and are more likely to be concentrated in the informal
economy (Broussard and Tekleselassie 2012; CSA 2016). Furthermore, if girls continue
their education, it is believed that this will reduce their marriage options leaving girls and
 COMPARE: A JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION 697

their families open to ridicule within the community (Crivello, Boyden, and Pankhurst
2019). Given this predicament, marriage can act as a means of securing girls’ economic
futures especially in the absence of alternatives (Chuta and Morrow 2015; Mjaaland 2018;
Pankhurst 2014; Pankhurst, Tiumelissan, and Chuta 2016). Yet these wider constraints
are often overlooked in efforts to advance rural girls’ secondary education and reduce
child marriage.

Increasing female rural-urban migration for education

In the context of struggles between the traditional pathways set out for girls and young
women in their rural communities, and the prospect of better and more modern futures
through secondary education, mostly only available in urban areas, female rural-urban
migration has increased in Ethiopia in recent years (Bundervoet 2018; De Regt and
Mihret 2020; Erulkar et al. 2006; Schewel and Fransen 2018). While limited data on
migration exists in Ethiopia, girls and young women make up the largest portion of
young migrants (Bundervoet 2018; De Regt and Mihret 2020; Erulkar et al. 2006; Schewel
and Fransen 2018). At the broadest level, rural-urban migration is a response to uneven
patterns of development and unequal access to education and work opportunities, due to
which, many children and young people no longer envision their futures in rural areas
(Abebe 2008; De Regt and Mihret 2020; Tadele and Gella 2014; Schewel and Fransen
2018). For girls and young women in particular, rural-urban migration provides an
added opportunity to escape the socio-cultural factors that constrain their experiences
and opportunities in their home communities and pursue their secondary education in
urban areas (Bundervoet 2018; Erulkar et al. 2006; De Regt and Mihret 2020). For
instance, in a study of over 1,000 adolescents aged 10–19 in Addis Ababa, Erulkar et al.
(2006) found that a substantial proportion of girls migrated to escape marriage, especially
younger adolescents, while education was also one of the primary reasons that many girls
migrated. Yet, beyond an awareness of the broader push and pull factors, the gender
specific dynamics underpinning the migration of rural girls and young women to urban
areas are insufficiently understood. In particular, the evidence on the role of girls’
secondary education in influencing female rural-urban migration remains limited.

Rural-Urban migration as a process of empowerment

In this article we consider the education and migration pathways of 27 girls and young
women from different rural communities in Southern Ethiopia, who leave behind their
families and communities to move to the city to pursue their formal education. To guide
our analysis, we draw on Kabeer’s (1999) empowerment framework, which describes
empowerment as ‘ . . . a process whereby those who have been denied the ability to make
strategic life choices develop such an ability’ (p437). Rooted in this definition, we
conceptualise the rural-urban migration of the participants as a process of empowerment
that provides them with the opportunity to pursue their secondary education in the city,
a prospect which generally is not possible for them in their rural communities.
Conceptualising empowerment as a process rather than an outcome allows us to move
beyond narrow understandings of empowerment as equality in certain domains and
freedom of choice, both of which up until now have yielded little in terms of improving
698 L. YORKE ET AL.

Figure 1. Conceptual framework of empowerment drawing on Kabeer (1999)

the daily lives and opportunities of the majority of rural girls and women (Crivello,
Boyden, and Pankhurst 2019; Enyew and Mihrete 2018: Yorke, Rose, and Pankhurst
2021). Rather we pay attention to the actual influences at play in the environment within
which the girls are located and the structural factors that underpin the inequalities that
they face (Choo and Ferree 2010). Guided by Kabeer’s (1999) framework we focus on the
lives of girls and young women in their rural communities before they migrate to the city
and the range of inequalities that limit their educational opportunities and outcomes in
the rural context. Specifically, we consider how the resources that girls have access to,
their ability to exercise their agency and to fulfil their ambitions in terms of their
education and outcomes are inextricably linked (Figure 1). In particular, we explore
why the socio-cultural expectations that girls will leave their education and enter into
marriage persist and how they are communicated. In doing so, we show how the ability of
girls and young women to challenge these inequalities is limited, and how that it is only
through migration that they have the opportunity to continue their education in the city.
Overall, through our analysis, we aim to provide a more in-depth understanding of the
inequalities that rural girls and young women face in pursuing their secondary education
in rural areas and how these are linked to the increasing phenomenon of female rural-
urban migration for education. We highlight the need for greater attention to be given to
the role of structural inequalities, both within rural communities and across the rural-
urban divide, if the promise of girls’ secondary education promoted by the government is
to be realised for rural girls and women. It is likely the findings will have relevance for
those interested in the issues of education, migration and gender equality in Ethiopia,
and in other similar contexts. In the next section, we outline the method and approach of
the study, while also providing an overview of the context of Southern Ethiopia where the
study was located.

Method and data

The data presented in this article is based on ethnographic fieldwork that took place in
2015 (three months) and 2016 (six months), in Hawassa city and a number of surround­
ing rural communities. The study sought to explore the educational pathways of a group
of 27 girls and young women from 14 different rural communities who moved indepen­
dently to the city to pursue their education in urban secondary schools.
At the time of the research, Hawassa city was located within the Southern Nations,
Nationalities and People’s Region (SNNPR), one of nine different regional states in
Ethiopia. The SNNP region was further divided into a number of administrative zones,
and Hawassa city was located with the Sidama Zone, which has since become its own
regional state in 2019. The SNNP region is one of the most populous and diverse regions
 COMPARE: A JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION 699

in Ethiopia with an estimated population of 15 million people in 2007. It is home to over

56 different ethnic groups, many of whom have their own language, culture and tradi­
tions. During the course of the fieldwork, we watched the city develop and change
rapidly, with an endlessly sprawling city boundary, new and improved roads, numerous
new hotels, and the building of Ethiopia’s largest industrial park, all of which were
offering the promise of new employment opportunities and a better life. This rapid
development stood at odds with the lack of progress we witnessed taking place in rural
areas outside of the city. In these rural communities, people largely depend on subsis­
tence agriculture, where access to basic infrastructure and facilities was limited and where
communities were increasingly vulnerable to environmental shocks including intermit­
tent drought and flooding. Hawassa city has one of the largest proportion of migrants in
all of Ethiopia, the majority of whom come from surrounding areas (Sidama and
Wolayta) (Bundervoet 2018), perhaps drawn by the rapid development of the city.
The rural girls and young women included in this study were recruited through two
local government secondary schools in Hawassa city, many of which had a large portion
of female migrants. A brief screening questionnaire was administered to all female
students from rural areas enrolled in the selected secondary schools. Based on this
information we purposively selected the participants to reflect the characteristics of the
wider sample. Where more than one student matched the criteria, we used a lottery
system to select who would be invited to take part in the study. Inevitably, the partici­
pants do not reflect the experiences of all female rural-urban migrants who come to the
city for education, given that the evidence suggests that many of those who migrate for
education fail to enter urban schools (Erulkar et al. 2006).
At the time of the research, all the participants were enrolled in grade nine (19
participants) and grade ten (8 participants) and were between 14 and 20 years old,
although during the course of the fieldwork some of the participants revealed that they
were either older or younger than they had originally told us. All the participants in this
study had either reached or surpassed the expected age range for marriage in their rural
communities. Informed consent was obtained from all participants and guardian consent
was obtained for all participants under the age of 18 years.
The participants were asked to self-identify the income status of their families within
their rural communities. Five participants positioned their families as low-medium
income level, eighteen participants identified their families as medium income level,
while four of the participants said their families were medium-high income level. Given
that migration involves an initial investment of resources, this perhaps suggests that
those from medium or medium-high income level are more likely to migrate. Yet all the
participants indicated that in relation to urban families, they were poor. For many of the
girls in this study, agriculture was the main income-generating activity of their families,
including growing enset and coffee for both subsistence and commercial farming. Four
participants had fathers who had passed away, an experience that left the families both
financially and socially vulnerable. The highest level of education achieved by any of the
parents was grade ten, although the majority had not completed primary education.
The data presented in this paper primarily come from in-depth life-story interviews,
augmented by insights garnered through other methods including focus group discus­
sions, participatory video drama and information gathered from a number of visits to
some of the sending communities of the rural girls. Other authors have successfully used
700 L. YORKE ET AL.

similar research approaches with children and young people in Ethiopia including in
relation to education (e.g. Abebe 2020) and migration (e.g. De Regt and Mihret 2020).
The in-depth nature of the study was crucial for building trust and confidence with the
research participants and the combination of different qualitative methods helps to
generate in-depth knowledge of the lived experiences of participants. This was particu­
larly important given our different positionalities to the research participants and to each
other, and potential power imbalances that could be present. We continually reflected
upon these issues throughout the research and how this affected the data collection and
analysis. For example, the fact that some of the participants told us that they were
younger or older than their actual age may have been because they were not at the
expected age for the grade in which they were enrolled. However, through our sustained
engagement in the field, we were able to build a greater sense of trust with the
participants.
As the participants had already left their rural communities and were living in the city,
the life story interviews (Goodson 2001) provided the participants with the opportunity
to reflect on their lives in their rural communities and their decision to come to the city
and continue their education. This helped them to make connections across different
aspects of their lives including across time (past, present, future), space (rural, urban) and
different themes (education, migration and gender), and provided insight into the multi­
tude of influences in their lives (Christensen and Jensen 2012; Goodson and Sikes 2011).
This helped to elicit rich and nuanced understandings of the lives and experiences of the
participants from their own perspectives. This is important given that evidence from the
lived experience of rural girls and women is often missing from policy and practice in
Ethiopia, which tends to prioritise quantitative data and evidence, which does not
adequately capture their lives and experiences and in turn leads to ineffective policy
and practice.
Ethical approval was obtained from the School of Social Work and Social Policy,
Trinity College Dublin and the College of Medicine and Health Science, Hawassa
University for this study. We also obtained local government approval from Hawassa
City Administration Education Department. All the interviews were conducted in either
Sidamigna or Amharic, depending on the preference of the participants and then
translated into English. Compensation was provided for the participants to cover their
travel and food expenses. The data was recorded and transcribed, and the coding process
was assisted by Atlas.ti. The data was coded using emergent themes and subthemes. The
names of the participants and all locations outside of Hawassa city have been changed to
preserve the anonymity of the participants.

‘In theory but not in practice’

‘Gender equality exists in theory in the rural area, but no one practices it’ explained many
of the participants through various groups discussions and interviews. They reflected on
how the pathway towards gender equality had been set in motion by the government over
25 years ago, when, on coming to power, it had introduced laws and policies that support
gender equality. The participants suggested that these laws and policies had brought
about some important changes especially in relation to access to education and employ­
ment, and this now meant that ‘ . . . females were now starting to become more equal . . . ’
 COMPARE: A JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION 701

(Focus Group Discussion [FGD]). Yet, they also agreed that these expanded opportu­
nities were not sufficient to bring about the transformative changes needed to achieve
gender equality as still ‘ . . . males are favoured’ (Beza). In elaborating upon this idea,
Meron explains that ‘everywhere people talk about gender equality, but in reality, when
you go to the rural area it is not practiced . . . .’. She further commented that ‘ . . . the
problem is within the community; men do not accept gender equality’. The efforts of the
government to promote gender equality had not been transformative enough and, as
a result, the lives of rural girls and women continued to be characterised by multiple,
interlocking inequalities that impact every aspect of their daily lives and limit their
experiences and opportunities.
Kidist was sixteen when she left her rural community and at the time of the research,
she was enrolled in grade ten in a secondary school in Hawassa city, where she had been
living for the past four years. Looking back at her life in her rural community she told us
of how ‘women don’t have rights’ and girls and women are unequal in every aspect of
their lives including the resources that they had access to. ‘We are not even equal in food’
she exclaimed, explaining how scarce resources were restricted to male family members
and how if there is not enough food, it is given to their brothers and fathers while she and
her sisters ‘don’t eat anything’. She also describes how in her rural community her
mobility was heavily constrained, and she could not move around her community freely,
while her brothers were free to do what they wanted. This was a common theme that
emerged during our interviews, and many of the other participants frequently spoke of
the restricted mobility of girls and women in their communities, which they described as
very challenging (also De Regt and Mihret 2020). In contrast to the freedom of male
community members, girls and women were expected to ‘ . . . stay at home and do the
home activities’ (Afewerk). The heavy work burden was often the first thing that the
participants raised when speaking about their life in their rural communities, discussing
at length the repetitive and burdensome tasks that they had to complete on a daily basis –
including cleaning the house, collecting firewood, washing clothes and preparing food for
the whole family. Girls and women had to compensate for the lack of infrastructure and
facilities in their rural areas including a lack of running water and electricity by, for
example, ‘ . . . travelling a long distance to fetch water’ (Bereket). For many of the
participants, their heavy work burden negatively impacted their education and meant
that they were often late or absent from school. As they got older, and their domestic
work burden increased, their academic performance deteriorated, which then limited
their education and related outcomes. Although these activities were crucial to the
functioning of the communities, girls and women received no reward or recognition
for these essential but arduous tasks.
Through the stories of the participants, we came to understand how the ability of girls
and women to challenge these inequalities in their rural communities was limited. Like
Kidist, many of the participants spoke of how girls and women had no decision-making
power in their rural communities, whether in the council of community elders who make
decisions in the community where women are not allowed to participate, or in the family
home. Kidist, succinctly captures the lack of decision-making power of women describing
how ‘ . . . we don’t have rights., we don’t speak, we don’t judge, we don’t give any decision’
(Kidist). The idea of not speaking or ‘keeping silent’ was commonly used by the participants,
across a variety of situations and contexts, to capture how girls and women had limited
702 L. YORKE ET AL.

agency and instead were expected to accept the established hierarchy. As Samira explains
‘Even if [a woman] speaks out, she is told: ‘you are a female you have to keep silent . . . you
have to accept what you are given [by males]’. Therefore, even if females did try to speak out
against the injustices that they faced, their protests would be quickly disregarded.

Unequal economic opportunities

As the participants saw it, their lower status in their communities was primarily a result of
their unequal access to economic opportunities, which in turn had implications for their
education and social outcomes. In all of the communities, male community members were
the sole income-generators, while there were ‘no activities available for women to earn
money’ (Alem). Samira explains how ‘ . . . regarding economic capacity, women are not
equal’ and as result ‘ . . . the community don’t see [males and females] equally’, while
Afework reiterates this sentiment explaining that ‘ . . . [the community] gives more priority
for males because in our village males are the income generators’. Due to their economic
power, men enjoyed greater independence and freedom, while in contrast, girls and
women had to ‘ . . . rely essentially on the income-generating capacity of male family
members (fathers, brothers)’ (Amarech). Consequently, given their dependence on male
community members, it was widely accepted that the only way for girls to secure their
futures and transition into adulthood was through marriage (also Pankhurst 2014), which
also had consequences for their education, as we will further explore.
Through the stories of the participants, we start to see the significant inequalities that
rural girls face in their communities including their unequal access to resources, their
heavy work burden and their limited agency and decision-making power (Kabeer 1999).
These inequalities experienced by girls and women are underpinned by inequalities
across the rural-urban divide including the limited infrastructure and facilities available
and the lack of employment opportunities. From the perspectives of the participants, and
in contrast to the dominant narrative at the national level, the economic inequalities that
they face are the main driver of the unequal lives they live in the rural community, which
in turn reinforces their unequal status. They are financially dependent on male commu­
nity members which curtails their freedom, yet, at the same time, the privileges of male
community members depend on the hard labour of girls and women, which is used to
compensate for wider rural-urban inequalities. As a result, they have limited ability to
challenge or change the established hierarchy and instead must ‘keep silent’ and accept
their status within the community. As we will consider in more detail, it is through
education and securing their own economic independence that the participants envisage
a route to greater gender equality and empowerment and that migration provides girls
with an opportunity to realise these aspirations.

‘No other options’

(Laughing) If I was still there, I would be the mother of kids. There is no other story. The
only thing that you can do is to get married because when you are a child, they hire you like
marriage recruitment, they recruit you and they can marry you (Hewan).
 COMPARE: A JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION 703

At the time of the data collection, Genet had been in Hawassa for two years and was
enrolled in grade ten. Neither of her parents are educated and she describes her family as
‘medium’ income level. Genet tells us that her main reason for migrating was to ‘ . . .
escape the marriage questions there’ but she also wished to escape the heavy domestic
work burden which meant that she did ‘not have any time for my studies’. Similar to
many other participants, she describes how girls are expected to enter into marriage when
they reach upper primary school, while those who remain unmarried by the end of
secondary school face ridicule in the community. This ridicule and shame not only
impacted rural girls and young women, but also extended to their families. Genet tells us
that her father objected to her education and tried to stop her migration, warning her that
‘if you go [to the city], you will be a grade eight student and if you fail the community will
laugh at me, they will say that no one will want you for marriage’. As Genet observes ‘ . . .
he was afraid of the community’s criticism’ (also Crivello, Boyden, and Pankhurst 2019).
While only a small number of participants said that they migrated to escape the direct
threat of marriage, like Genet, all the participants without exception indicated that if they
were still living in their rural community, they would have left education and entered
marriage and motherhood. As Beza describes, ‘ . . . last year I would have already gotten
married and this year I would have a baby’. This was despite the fact that many
participants had completed their primary education before they migrated. In explaining
this phenomenon, they discussed how although community members were ‘ . . . changing
their attitudes towards girls’ education’ (Martha), this was mostly restricted to enrolling
girls in primary school and once girls reached a certain point, it was widely agreed that
they had received ‘enough education’ and they should now enter into marriage. Again,
participants mainly viewed this as a result of the economic inequalities that they faced
and the fact that beyond education there were ‘no other options’ (Hannah) for girls and
young women other than marriage (also Pankhurst 2014). They discussed how, even for
girls who completed secondary level, they would still be expected to enter into marriage
directly afterwards. In this regard, continuing education was seen as having no benefits
for girls, while marriage was viewed as a more secure option (also Archambault 2011). In
fact, the decision to pursue education was associated with carrying the unnecessary risk
that could limit girls’ opportunities for securing a good marriage partner (also Camfield
and Tafere 2011).

‘Education? What does that bring?’

Participants spoke of how the wider community would try to coerce and shame girls to
enter into marriage using ‘ . . . insults, rumours, and bad examples . . . ’ (Kidist) with
warnings such as ‘ . . . you are now old enough . . ., you have to marry someone . . . up to
grade eight is enough education for girls’ (Melal). Unlike Genet’s father, in most cases,
the participants indicated that their parents supported their education and did not wish
for them to be married. Yet participants still described being unable to withstand the
significant pressure from the wider community, despite their parents’ support. Many
participants told of how community members would use ‘bad examples’ of other girls
who had continued their education beyond the expected age of marriage but had failed to
benefit from education and were now ‘left in the house’. For example, Genet describes
how members of her community would tell her things like: ‘Look at her she finished
704 L. YORKE ET AL.

grade ten but she’s left in the house, even she doesn’t have a husband’. Similarly, Hannah
recalled how community members would declare: ‘Education? What does that bring? It
didn’t bring her anything and now she is left in her parents’ house’. If girls did not
conform to the community’s expectations, then they ran the risk of becoming a ‘bad
example’, which would bring shame not only on the girls themselves but also on their
families (also Mjaaland 2018). This shame then becomes a powerful tool of persuasion in
convincing girls to marry.
At the same time, the participants, also agreed that to be ‘left in the house’ (Samira)
would ultimately be the worst option. This meant that girls would continue to face
substantial inequalities including limited access to even the most basic resources, a heavy
work burden and little independence or decision-making power, and with their chances
of finding a suitable marriage partner ever diminishing. Considering these limited
options, the participants explained that there were many instances in their rural com­
munities of girls who ‘preferred’ to enter marriage (also Pankhurst, Tiumelissan, and
Chuta 2016). As explained by Genet many girls accepted that education would not bring
them any benefits as they ‘ . . . have seen other girls who completed grade ten and didn’t
benefit’ and so rather than wasting their time with education they would enter marriage
directly. Considering the lack of alternatives and the high risk that education entails,
entry into marriage may provide a way of escaping current inequalities and uncertainty,
even though they may be facing new forms of inequality by entering marriage early.
Thus, whether pressured into early marriage by the community, or whether rural girls
themselves chose to enter marriage, the lack of alternatives mean that for most, marriage
is the only option. For many rural and girls and women, it is only by migrating out of
their rural communities that they can escape this seemingly insurmountable pressure to
enter marriage and thereby continue their secondary education

‘Free from a life of dependence’

Rahel was 18 years old at the time of the data collection and was enrolled in grade nine.
She tells us that she did not like living in her rural community because of the lack of
resources and facilities such as electricity and a phone network; also, her community did
not have a good attitude to girls’ education. Rahel’s mother, who was forced to marry her
father when she was very young, suggested that Rahel move to Hawassa to have a better-
quality education and to escape the threat of marriage. Rahel agreed with her mother and
explained to us that it was important for her to pursue her education to get knowledge
and to secure financial independence. Rahel herself was also attracted by the urban
lifestyle and she talked about how her life has improved since coming to the city and
how she has become ‘more urban’ and ‘more beautiful’.
As illustrated through Rahel’s account, in addition to the multiple and intersecting
inequalities in their communities that had influenced girls’ decision to migrate, many of
the participants were also attracted by city life where they had greater access to resources
and greater freedom. Like Rahel, others also spoke of ‘becoming more beautiful’ since
moving to the city. Initially, this sounded a somewhat superficial claim, but we came to
appreciate the significance of these declarations, which signalled the greater availability of
resources and the new sense of agency they now had to determine their lives and
everyday choices. In most cases, the participants could now freely access essential services
 COMPARE: A JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION 705

such as water and electricity and had greater freedom and decision-making power. This
meant that they now had more time to devote to their education and focus on their
futures, a point captured by Melal:
[In the city] we have changed - the way that we study, the way that we speak, how to keep
our hygiene. We give priority to our education . . . and we know that if we perform well, it is
good for our future life. We have become a good lesson for others.

Many of the constraints of rural life, such as the heavy work burden that they had faced,
had either been significantly reduced or eliminated completely. In the city, the partici­
pants have greater access to resources, and greater scope to exercise their agency and
decision-making power, which in turn means that they have more control over their lives
and can pursue their education (Kabeer 1999).
Since coming to the city, many of the participants spoke of how their aspirations for
their future had increased and they now spoke of becoming doctors, lawyers and
engineers, career paths that were markedly different from those of their parents. In
contrast to their lives in their rural communities characterised by their financial depen­
dence on male family members, their desire to be financially independent and ‘ . . . free
from a life of dependence’ (Siyane) was central to their imagined future pathways. They
believed that only by securing their own economic independence would they become
equal with men and ensure that their future marriages would be fair and equal.
Nevertheless, even though many facets of the lives of the participants had improved in
the city – with greater access to resources and greater agency and decision-making
power – it is perhaps more appropriate to see the empowerment of the girls and young
women in this study as a process rather than an outcome (Kabeer 1999). It is still unclear
as to whether the participants will be able to realise their aspirations for their futures,
which also brings to the fore the question of what will happen if the participants are not
successful, and what awaits them if they return to their rural communities where
marriage is ‘the only option’ (Crivello, Boyden, and Pankhurst 2019).

Conclusion
This article has explored the rural-urban migration of 27 girls and young women who
leave behind their rural communities and move to the city to pursue their secondary
education in Southern Ethiopia. Drawing on the participants’ lived experiences and
guided by Kabeer’s (1999) framework of empowerment, we have revealed the nature
and extent of the inequalities that the participants face in their rural communities that
limit their secondary education and outcomes – including their unequal access to
resources and their limited agency and decision-making power – and how these are
linked to their rural-urban migration for education. Our findings highlight the tension
between the promise of girls’ secondary education, which is promoted, often uncritically,
at both the international and national level and the reality of the lives of girls and young
women living in rural areas, the majority of whom are unable to realise this promise.
The combination of different methods – including life story interviews, focus group
discussion and participatory video drama – and the sustained engagement with the
participants over time has been a particular strength of this study. Recognising that in
many instances girls and young women have been taught to ‘keep silent’, providing
706 L. YORKE ET AL.

participants with time to reflect and communicate their experiences has proved essential
during the research. As these are retrospective accounts of the participants’ lives in rural
communities and in some ways coloured by their experiences in urban areas, it could be
argued that this does not provide a fully accurate portrayal of rural life as the girls are
looking back. However, the corroboration of the accounts of rural life, including through
our own visits to some of these rural locations, demonstrated the essential accuracy of
these accounts. Further studies that explore the lives and pathways of rural girls in the
city through and beyond secondary education could provide additional insights. In
addition, generating quantitative evidence that provides a better understanding of the
extent of female rural-urban migration for education is warranted.
In comparing the lives of the participants in this study across rural-urban location, we
have shown how the inequalities that girls and women experience in their rural com­
munities are underpinned by wider structural inequalities across the rural-urban divide
(Abebe 2008, 2020; Boyden and Zharkevich 2018; Mains 2011) . Failure to address these
wider structural inequalities has meant that what has taken place is the impression of
progress rather than real progress in their rural communities, where gender equality
exists ‘in theory but not in practice’. Inequalities across the rural-urban divide have
a disproportional impact on the lives of rural girls and women who continue to
compensate for the lack of basic resources and infrastructure in their rural communities
(e.g. running water, electricity) through the heavy domestic labour that they carry out on
a daily basis. Economic inequalities within communities and across the rural-urban
divide and the subsequent financial dependence of rural girls and women on male
community members means marriage is often the ‘only option’ for rural girls and
women who wish to secure their futures (Crivello, Boyden, and Pankhurst 2019). In
this context, we come to see their migration as a process of empowerment that enables
them to pursue their education, which we learn, would not have been possible for them if
they had stayed in their rural communities (Kabeer 1999). As presented visually in
Figure 2, through their migration to the city, the participants have increased their access
to the resources that they need, they have increased their agency and decision-making
power and have the opportunity to access secondary education. At the same time, our

Figure 2. Migration as a process of empowerment, drawing on Kabeer (1999)

 COMPARE: A JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION 707

analysis underlines the importance of understanding empowerment as a process rather

than an outcome, especially given the fact that the futures of the participants in this study
are still uncertain.
Based on our analysis, a number of important considerations for policy and practice
emerge. There is an urgent need for more transformative approaches to rural girls’
education and gender equality, which move beyond simply seeking to increase female
participation in education and instead take account of the environment within which
rural girls and young women are located (Choo and Ferree 2010). Greater attention must
be paid to the complexity of the decision-making process around education and mar­
riage, acknowledging that resisting child marriage may not be possible for or even
preferable to girls in specific contexts (Bessa 2019) and the potentially negative psycho­
logical and social impacts for girls who do try to resist this pressure. In particular, our
findings point to the need to give greater attention to the economic rights and indepen­
dence of girls and women and to ensure that viable opportunities are available for girls
beyond success in secondary education before the potential of girls’ education can be
fully realised (Archambault 2011; Bessa 2019; Pankhurst 2014; Kabeer 1999; Khoja-
Moolji 2016).

Acknowledgments
We would like to express our appreciation and gratitude to the twenty-seven research participants
and their family members who took part in this study. We would also like to thank the Centre for
Policy and Development Research at Hawassa University for facilitating this research. We would
like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding
Funding was received from the Irish Research Council and the School of Social Work and Social
Policy, Trinity College Dublin.

ORCID
Louise Yorke http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5028-0317
Robbie Gilligan http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4150-3523

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