Psychological empowerment of politically empowered Saudi women

Hanaa Faize A. Moubarak () and Asyraf Afthanorhan
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Hanaa Faize A. Moubarak: University of Ha’il
Asyraf Afthanorhan: Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin

Palgrave Communications, 2025, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Women’s political empowerment is increasingly recognized as critical to countries with low levels, such as Saudi Arabia. Recently becoming aware of the need for women’s political empowerment, Saudi Arabia has enabled the participation of women as voters and candidates for the first time in municipal councils since 2015. And whereas the political empowerment of Saudi women is not complete without their psychological empowerment, so this paper aims to assess the psychological empowerment indicators of politically empowered Saudi women and explore the relationship between their political and psychological empowerment using Ex Post Facto design. The study includes two groups: 18 politically empowered women who were elected to the Saudi municipal councils during its third session in 2015, and 18 non-politically empowered women with similar characteristics. The results revealed that the most important psychological empowerment indicators of politically empowered Saudi women were; being aware of achieving goals (significance); investing in abilities and contributing towards creating a positive and moral atmosphere (impact); benefitting from anything that contributes towards achieving goals (self-efficacy); and lastly, taking the initiative in various life situations (self-determination). The results also revealed that there were statistically significant correlations between the four dimensions of psychological empowerment in both groups of women.

Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palcom:v:12:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-025-04610-8

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DOI: 10.1057/s41599-025-04610-8

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