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The purpose of this paper is to check the impact of financial inclusion on economic development of marginalized communities through the mediation of socio-economic empowerment.

In order to fulfil the objectives of the study, primary data were collected from 382 bank customers belonging to marginalized communities breathing in Jammu district of J and K by using purposive sampling technique. The data were collected during the month of April–August 2020. Multivariate statistical techniques such as EFA, CFA and SEM were used for data analysis and scale purification.

The study’s results reveal that financial inclusion has a direct and significant impact on economic development of marginalized communities through the mediation of social and economic empowerment. The study highlights that despite various initiatives taken by the government towards financial inclusion, there is a denial from the financial institutions to extend the credit to the marginalized communities due to lack of education, illiteracy, lack of awareness, attitude of bankers and policy directions to the banking sector, which confine these communities to feel proud, dignified, confident and self-reliant to face any financial crisis.

First the in-depth analysis of the study is restricted to Jammu district only that restricts the generalization of the results to the whole population of J and K. Second, the data were collected from respondents belonging to marginalized communities only. Third, comparative study of marginalized households who are covered under the financial inclusion drive and those who are still financially excluded has not been done yet. Fourth, the questionnaire approach was the only way to gather primary data and thus, the results might have a common-method bias.

The study makes contribution in the direction of financial inclusion narrative relating to socio-economic empowerment and economic development of marginalized communities. It looks into how for the socio-economic aspects of marginalized communities influence their exclusion from the financial system of the country. The study also provides valuable insights for the policymakers, researchers and academicians both at the countrywide and intercontinental level to devise and put into practice programmes that will widen right to use financial products and services leading to cutback of poverty incidence, income parity, social and economic empowerment, economic development and reduction in caste and gender based discrimination.

Women’s empowerment is a multidimensional concept that encompasses different aspects such as access to education, freedom to make vital decisions, labor market access, wages, and political participation, among others. In this research, the authors construct a multidimensional index of women’s empowerment that takes into account individual resources and achievements and analyze its evolution across countries using data from the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations for 17 gender indicators across 96 countries over the period 1995–2015. By means of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, the authors identify three dimensions of women’s empowerment: reproductive health, economic participation, and basic education. In addition, the authors use cluster techniques to classify countries into four groups with similar behavior patterns in the different domains of women’s empowerment: a group of countries with high levels in the domains of reproductive health and basic education but with low levels in economic participation; a group of countries with high levels in the domains of reproductive health and economic participation that should pay attention to education; a group of countries with medium levels across the three dimensions of women’s empowerment, especially in reproductive health and economic participation; and a group of countries with low levels in all the dimensions of women’s empowerment, especially in reproductive health and basic education. The comparison of these different patterns serves to highlight the aspects in which improvements have been made or, on the contrary, to highlight the obstacles that are hindering the improvement of gender equality. Finally, the results suggest that advancements in women’s empowerment improve the countries’ level of development.

This paper aims to explore individuals’ economic empowerment and political empowerment association and the moderation role of entrepreneurship development programs on this relationship in the context of post-revolution Tunisia, which is a newer developing democracy.

The study uses a quantitative approach based on econometric modeling. A questionnaire was designed and administrated to a stratified random sample of 343 participants in the Entrepreneurship for the Participation and Inclusion of Vulnerable Youth in Tunisia program, funded by the United Nations Democracy Fund and implemented in rural northwestern Tunisia between 2017 and 2021. A coarsened exact matching method is also applied for robustness analysis.

The analysis shows that when individuals have enhanced economic decision-making agency and are involved in economic networks, they are more likely to demonstrate higher political empowerment. It also shows that expanding rural individuals’ economic opportunities by providing entrepreneurial resources, such as entrepreneurial training and microcredit, strengthens individuals’ economic empowerment and political empowerment association.

The study provides practical implications for policymakers in newer developing democracies. Citizens’ political empowerment and inclusion in rural areas could be promoted by developing entrepreneurship development programs, which could help reinforce the citizens-state relationship and establish more stable social contracts. The research also provides practical implications for the international development community, donor agencies and program designers through duplicating similar programs in other countries with weak central government structures (i.e. post-conflict environments, post-revolution).

The research attempts to contribute to the ongoing debates linking entrepreneurship, economic empowerment and political/citizen empowerment. It focuses on a Middle East and North Africa country, Tunisia, characterized by socioeconomic issues and low civic participation.

The purpose of this paper is to measure the impact of financial inclusion on economic development.

Study 1 used World Bank Data to develop financial inclusion percentages of ownership of checking accounts, savings accounts, debit cards and loans for 179 countries among the poorest 40% of the population, from 2011–2017. Regressions established the financial inclusion, gross savings and GDP per capita growth linkage. Study 2 created and validated scales to measure social empowerment, economic empowerment and economic development, among inhabitants of Bangladesh villages. Structural equation modeling measured the mediation by social empowerment and economic empowerment of the financial inclusion and economic development linkage.

Total financial inclusion was significantly explained by gross savings, which was significantly explained by GDP per capita growth. Ownership of a checking account significantly increased gross savings, while ownership of a savings account significantly increased GDP per capita growth. Ownership of a checking account differentiated countries with the highest 5% of gross savings, while ownership of a debit card significantly differentiated countries with the GDP per capita growth. Social empowerment and economic empowerment significantly mediated the financial inclusion and economic development relationship.

The study is unique in examining financial inclusion from a multi country, macroeconomic perspective combined with measurement of its theoretical underpinnings through a primary data-based sample extracted from respondents in Bangladesh, a lower middle-income country in Southeast Asia.

The study finds the determinants of women empowerment measured in terms of domestic decision-making in a developing economy perspective by considering rural women in India. Women empowerment simply means giving opportunities to women to enable them to be socially and financially independent. Empowerment of women through investment in their education and health has a positive effect on economic growth. Almost 70% of Indian population lives in rural areas. If women in these areas are educated and empowered, they can contribute to the economic growth either directly or indirectly by improving health and education of the future generations. This study indicates that an employed woman, having her own income source, higher educational level, knowledge of legal rights, higher educational level of the mother of the woman, having property in her own name, more freedom of movement during her school days, having high self-esteem and belonging to a relatively affluent background, increases domestic making power of the women, and thus empowerment. Some possible policies are suggested for developing economies.

Women’s economic empowerment (WEE) has become a crucial part of national and international policy-making agendas in the last decades. It has also developed into a field of study and knowledge production promoted and advanced by international organizations and some academic centers. Through the formulation and implementation of programs, these organizations seek to promote such empowerment. Evaluation is a crucial part of the process, assessing the results of interventions in local, regional and national settings. This book chapter aims to critically discuss the role of subjective measurement and the importance of context in these evaluations. Specifically, the status of subjective measurement, their implementation through qualitative methods and how they contribute to understanding context. Firstly, the author offers a brief reflection on the emergence of the subject as a goal and a field. Secondly, the author succinctly discusses a theoretical framework on power, (dis)empowerment and gender relations. In the third section, the author examines three reports that contribute significantly to the current debate on WEE through empirical studies, reviews and analysis. In the discussion section, the author focuses on three points that are used to connect those reports, highlighting their differences and contributions. The final remarks reflect on the importance and advantages of including subjective measurement and the significance of context in our pursuit of ending gender inequality.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of Islamic finance on women empowerment in Africa between the periods of 1975 and 2021.

This paper uses secondary data for 27 African countries obtained from the World Development Indicators, World Population Review and the Varieties of Democracy databases. Four dimensions of women empowerment, namely, economic, social, political and household, are considered while Islamic finance is proxied by a binary variable with 1 and 0 representing the presence and the absence of Islamic finance, respectively. The two-staged least square estimation technique is used to control for the problem of endogeneity.

This study revealed that Islamic finance positively affects women empowerment in Africa. Specifically, Islamic finance has positive and significant effects on women political empowerment, women economic empowerment and women social empowerment in Africa but nonsignificant effect on home empowerment. These effects are more pronounced in middle-income than in low-income countries and in countries with higher penetration rate of Islamic finance.

Policymakers should put in place the necessary mechanisms for the promotion of Islamic finance such as the enacting of laws that ensures the creation of full-fledged Islamic banks, encouraging research in Islamic finance and Islamic economics. These policies should equally be backed by the creation of some accompanying measures such as the abolition of social norms that limit women’s ability to take part in decision-making.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study involving an Africa continent-wide analysis of the effects of Islamic finance on women empowerment.

Women establish about half of the world's population and constitute a significant part of the workforce. Women's empowerment is considered as an entry point for women's integration and inclusion into development. Economic independence is recognized as the key to women's empowerment. Economic independence provides women with autonomy in other aspects of their life. By organizing them into groups and providing financial freedom by enhancing the livelihood of women, cooperatives are playing an essential role in the empowerment of women. In the last two decades, self-help group (SHGs) has evolved as an informal form of cooperative and has played a very important role in women empowerment.

This paper is an attempt to explore the role of cooperatives in women empowerment. Firstly, an intensive search of literature was done to identify the role of cooperatives in bringing women empowerment in the Scopus database. This data were analysed to look at the trends in research using VOSviewer. Later, the findings of this study are supported by field observation.

The paper also develops a framework for women empowerment through cooperatives and reviews the field experiences to support the framework. The paper concludes that the theory of economic modernity holds true for women empowerment, as economic independence through cooperatives has helped women gain access to control over resources and led to women empowerment.

The paper develops a framework and supports the findings that economic independence is a key to women empowerment, and cooperatives are playing an important role in the same. It will help practitioners in framing the policies and interventions for women empowerment. The findings of the paper will be helpful in setting directions for research in this domain.

The paper is an original contribution as it has reviewed literature and used VOSviewer. Along with the review, it has supported the findings from qualitative observations from the field.

This paper aims to tackle an important question related to women’s economic empowerment in highly patriarchal societies like Egypt. The paper discusses individual, household, wealth and location factors determining women empowerment, as measured by two dimensions: decision-making power and mobility.

Using the “Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey” (ELMPS) 2012, a Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes (MIMIC) model was estimated to study the main economic resources and social constraints that determine women empowerment as measured by the power of women over household decisions and her freedom of movement in Egypt.

Three key messages could be delivered. First, women’s own economic resources as captured by her employment status are an important source of her empowerment. Second, contrary to theoretical prediction education is not playing its expected role in developing awareness and transforming ideas concerning gender roles in Egypt. Third, the importance of social local context is fundamental for Egyptian women empowerment.

This study is an attempt to address some of the gaps in the literature for the Egyptian case, where there is a lack in rigorous studies measuring women empowerment and examining its determinates. This is done by first, tackling multiple dimension of women’s empowerment, decision-making inside households and freedom of mobility. Second, using MIMIC model, which is a modeling approach that allows for studying the relations between several causes of a given latent variable, such as “Empowerment” in our case, and a number of its possible indicators, without a directly observable measure of the latent variable. Third, using the most recent set of data; the ELMPS 2012 which has a special focus on women’s resources and agency that permits greater content validity of the multidimensional setup. Forth, the macro level differences in women’s status are tackled through using location dummy variables. Finally, given the important correlation between wealth level and women empowerment, the paper is considered a first attempt to analyze such impact by including a variable that captures the wealth level of the woman’s household as one determinant of empowerment.