Women’s economic empowerment is a complex process involving improvements in the economic resources and skills available to them, their access to economic institutions, their ability to make decisions for themselves, and the degree of control they possess over key resources (Kabeer 2001, McDevitt 2010, Golla et al 2011, Mahmud et al 2011).
Section two of this report provides a summary of the key types of measures for measuring and evaluating women’s economic empowerment, drawing on a comprehensive overview of this topic by Golla et al (2011) before highlighting some studies of women’s economic empowerment in Bangladesh and Nepal.
Section three provides some critical appraisal of the application of these measures, based on these studies and the broader literature. It highlights issues surrounding the concept of women’s empowerment, the need to use a range of measures, and the use of universal indicators.
Section four provides a summary of current critiques and views on different approaches to measuring women’s economic empowerment, addressing three key issues in the literature – the use of participatory approaches, randomised control trials, and women’s empowerment indexes.
An earlier GSDRC survey of the literature on measuring women’s economic empowerment McDevitt (2010, p.2) finds that ‘there is no standard definition of women‘s economic empowerment and the term is often used loosely’. Golla et al (2011, p. 4) argue that women’s economic empowerment comes in two parts: ‘To succeed and advance economically, women need the skills and resources to compete in markets, as well as fair and equal access to economic institutions. To have the power and agency to benefit from economic activities, women need to have the ability to make and act on decisions and control resources and profits’.
