What is women's “economic” empowerment? Meanings and measurement

Madeline Robbenhaar, Daniel Dinale, Rhonda Breitkreuz and Marian Baird

Chapter 2 in Women’s Economic Empowerment and the State, 2026, pp 30-47 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Beginning in the twenty-first century, development stakeholders began to focus on women's economic empowerment (WEE) as a key pathway to achieve global gender equality. Although interest in WEE has continued to develop over the last three decades, no unified definition of women's economic empowerment yet exists. As a concept, women's economic empowerment is muddy, with understandings and applications differing amongst stakeholders. In this chapter, we aim to advance conceptual clarity surrounding WEE by providing a high-level overview of the development and current state of women's economic empowerment in global contexts. First, this chapter traces the history of women's economic empowerment, beginning with feminist women's empowerment initiatives in the 1970s and ending with the contested space of WEE in the contemporary period. Next, we provide an overview of prominent definitions of WEE and delineate between individualistic market-oriented definitions and feminist, critical human ecological definitions. Then, this chapter reviews key approaches to measuring women's economic empowerment. Based on this analysis, authentic empowerment is understood to require a contextual, structural, and transformative vision – one that enhances individual outcomes while addressing broader conditions that sustain inequality.

Keywords: Women's Economic Empowerment; Definition of WEE; Measurement; Individualist; Market Approaches; Feminist; Critical Human Ecological Approaches (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781803921167
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781803921174.00010 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:21465_2

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().