Women’s education and world peace

This commentary on Potts et al provides a critical view on their thesis that increasing the level of education among women is likely to reduce terrorism. Presence of a strong family planning program enables women to control family size resulting in women’s public participation more likely and facilitating the emergence of small birth cohorts who are less likely to become unemployed. In spite of the several theoretical insights their paper offers, they have not adequately described the multiple social and economic linkages that may exist between fertility rates and lowering frequency of wars, terrorism, etc.