This fact reflects the tendency everywhere for schools to be concentrated in urban areas. In Cameroon and Haiti, for example, nearly half of migrant women are illiterate compared with about one-quarter of nonmigrant urban women. In some countries these differences are small, however. In Colombia, Kenya, and the Philippines, almost all urban women of reproductive age, whether migrants or not, can read. These differences reflect the fact that most adult migrants grew up in the countryside, where there are fewer secondary schools than in the cities, and where few women have an opportunity to obtain more than a primary education.
Educational status affects reproductive health status in several important ways.
The low living standards of migrants, refugees, and internally displaced persons are one of the most critical reasons for their relatively poor health status. They were more likely to live in houses with dirt floors. While this procedure allows comparisons between groups of people within the same country, it is too simple to yield comparisons among countries. Often these are jobs that they cannot leave to use reproductive health or other social services.