Women's Rights and Population Growth

As a father of two young daughters, women's rights is an important issue to me.  I want my daughters to have the exact same, if not better, opportunities that I had and will continue to have.  They shouldn't have to suffer lower pay for the same job or experience fewer advancement opportunities simply because they lack a penis.  I'm ashamed to live in a country that recognizes there is an issue, but who's politicians are unwilling to make changes to support women.  It's even worse in third world countries where women often have no choices.  They are completely controlled by their husbands and lack the right to make their own choices.

Equal rights for women have been shown to increase economic output and lower the rate of population growth.  Here's an interesting article on women's rights and population growth.  It discusses many things, but one thing that sticks out is this.

"An estimated 215 million women in developing countries have an unmet need for family planning: they are sexually active, don’t want to become pregnant, and yet for various reasons—including lack of access—are not using contraception."

 I was recently listening to a talk radio show and the host was interviewing someone on this topic.  Extrapolating the effect of women's rights out several decades finds that if all women had equal rights, the world's population will be 1 billion less in 2050 than it would be if women continue to lack equal rights.  In a world where population growth is a problem, reducing growth by 1 billion people is very significant!

If you have daughters, cousins, nieces, etc., then you should be fighting for equal rights.  Even if you don't have any women in your life, you should fight for equal rights because it is the right thing to do.