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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.

This study investigates the effectiveness of microfinance-backed entrepreneurship as a mechanism for the holistic empowerment of women.

This study employs a mixed-method research-design consisting of quasi-experimental design (quantitative approach) involving women, both entrepreneurs (132) and non-entrepreneurs (238), as well as in-depth semi-structured interviews (qualitative approach).

Quantitative analysis revealed that female entrepreneurs are better off than female non-entrepreneurs in terms of economic, social, political and psychological indicators of empowerment. However, relatively lesser impact was found in terms of political, and to an even smaller extent, social empowerment of women. Analysis of in-depth interviews corroborated these findings confirming that entrepreneurship serves as an effective tool for the holistic empowerment of women. However, non-entrepreneurs also exhibit social empowerment.

Given the restricted geographical ambit of the study, prudence ought to be exercised in drawing inferences applied to alternate contexts. That the vast majority of questionnaire respondents are illiterate presented a notable impediment in the process of collection of accurate responses.

Microfinance intervention ought to be specifically directed to cultivating entrepreneurship among women; in particular, to achieve the full benefits of empowerment, women availing microfinance ought to exert full control over their own business ventures.

In analyzing holistic empowerment through microfinance supported businesses set up by women, the study adds to the existing literature on women entrepreneurship and empowerment.

This research aims to explore the significance of cooperative efforts in promoting financial participation to enhance the socio-economic empowerment of the rural Muslims.

The primary study with a structured questionnaire has been conducted taking a sample of 398 rural Muslim respondents from various rural regions of south India through proportionate stratified sampling techniques. Regression analysis, paired sample t-test and structural equation modelling (SEM) through statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) 26 & SPSS analysis of moment structures (AMOS) 23 software have been implemented to test the relationship.

The research outcome demonstrated a remarkable difference in the rural Muslim’s socio-economic conditions before and after availing the loans from cooperatives. Consequently, an extension of cooperative efforts widens the scope of financial participation which again has positively enhanced rural Muslim’s socio-economic empowerment.

This study will help various policymakers, academicians and communities to take necessary action for the upliftment of a particular community. The research further adds on to the existing research on the need and importance of cooperative efforts as an alternative finance for marginalised community in developing and emerging countries.

The result of this study is only confined to south India, posing a limitation for the study. Apart from the geographical restriction, the study solemnly covers the rural Muslim community extracting other sections of the society. Hence, for more generalisable pictures of the current results, further research is recommended from other stakeholders’ perspectives.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of Islamic microfinance services (IMFS) on women’s empowerment in rural Bangladesh.

The study is based on a multi-stage sampling technique. The primary data are collected through a face-to-face survey of 389 women respondents who have received IMFS from the Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited. Cronbach’s alpha test is conducted to test the reliability and internal consistency of collected data. Paired-sample tests, logit regression and proportion hypothesis tests are conducted to measure the impact of IMFS on women’s empowerment. Descriptive and inferential statistics are used to interpret the data.

The study reveals that IMFS have led to structural transformation in the occupation dynamics of the respondents’ families from agriculture to retail businesses. IMFS have had a significant positive impact on household income, savings and expenditure; have improved standard of living and human capital formation; and have enhanced all three dimensions of empowerment, namely, economic empowerment (ECEM), socio-cultural empowerment (SCEM) and familial empowerment (FLEM). Of them, ECEM and SCEM have positively contributed toward overall women’s empowerment, while FLEM has a negative but insignificant impact on overall empowerment. The respondents’ perception also supports the finding that IMFS have benefited rural women and empowered them.

The study is based on primary data. It leads to an inquiry as to whether women are dominant in familial affairs. If so, it may reduce the state of happiness and overall women’s empowerment. There is a clear gap in the existing literature about this inquiry.

Since the introduction of product certification in the 1980s, fair trade has grown apart from its social justice roots and the focus has steadily shifted away from calls for institutional market reform, corporate accountability, and fair prices, and toward a celebratory embrace of poverty alleviation and income growth through market integration and business partnerships. This paper examines fair trade's narratives of poverty and partnerships, focusing on the brand communication strategies employed by influential fair trade organizations and businesses. These are compared with how fair trade coffee producers in southern Mexico understand and practice partnership, demonstrating some of the ways in which the latter resist narrative framings which position them as entrepreneurial businesspeople first and cooperativistas second. The business partnerships between coffee buyers and producers are highly asymmetrical, and the partnerships that matter most for the Oaxacan coffee farmers are not with global businesses and certifiers, but instead with each other and their producer organizations. These relationships did not originate with fair trade, although, they are, in part, sustained by this system which supports democratically organized producer groups, the sharing of technical and market information, and communal management of the fair trade premium. In contrast to the organizations that certify and market their products, the paper demonstrates how farmers regard their precarious economic circumstances as an issue of social justice to be addressed through increased state support rather than market empowerment. The analytical juxtaposition of farmers' attitudes with fair trade organizational priorities contributes to the expanding literature examining how fair trade policies are experienced on the ground.

Women’s empowerment remains a key development challenge in Kenya. The purpose of this study is to attempt to understand the status of women’s empowerment and the key contributors to their disempowerment in Kenya’s aquaculture sector.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted on 534 male and female fish farmers from 300 households drawn from six counties in Kenya (Kakamega, Kisumu, Kisii, Kiambu, Meru and Nyeri). The Abbreviated Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (A-WEAI) was adapted to Abbreviated Women’s Empowerment in Fisheries and Aquaculture Index (A-WEFI) to suit the aquaculture and fisheries sub-sector. The adapted A-WEFI was then used to estimate and the status of women’s and men’s using five domains of empowerment (5DE) and a gender parity index (GPI). Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Cramer’s V and sensitivity analysis as test statistics.

About 86% of the men and 80% of the women were classified as empowered. The mean score of the 5DE was 0.93 and 0.95 for women and men, respectively. In addition, 82% of the households achieved gender parity, suggesting that for such households, empowerment of men was no greater than that of women. Overall, the results suggest no major differences between the empowerment of women and men. Findings suggest areas of improvement in empowerment: when observed separately, women report lack of agency in production, resource, time-use and allocation and leadership.

This paper adapts the A-WEAI to the fisheries and aquaculture context, in bid to bridge the gap in standard women’s empowerment measurement methods in this area. Also, there are limited empirical studies on the multifaceted empowerment of women in aquaculture in Kenya. The findings are meant to serve as a point of reference for policymakers, as they develop gender-responsive intervention programmes, and in implementing gender mainstreaming in Kenya.

The purpose of this study is to develop an empirically informed framework to analyze women empowerment and entrepreneurship, contextualized within a collective society.

The authors conducted 15 in-depth semi-structured interviews with women entrepreneurs located in the United Arab Emirates to understand their entrepreneurial experiences and how they were empowered.

Findings suggest that the three aspects of power characterized as “positive” from within Rowlands’ distinctions (“power to”, “power with” and “power within”) dominate, as opposed to those emphasized in the literature (“power to” and “power over”). Findings include empowerment of the “me” (individual) also synergistically contributes to empowerment of the “we” (society), when considering empowerment within a collective society.

A psychology model was used as a basis to develop a Collective Empowerment Process Framework. This framework provides a fresh look at empowerment, allowing for explanations of how women in specific contexts experience empowerment and social change.

Despite the longstanding male dominance in the socio-politico-economic spheres, recent decades have witnessed remarkable improvements in gender inclusion. Although the issue of gender inclusion has been widely documented, answers to the question of whether institutional arrangements and information technology shape gender inclusion remain contentious. This study, therefore, empirically examines the effects of institutional quality and ICT penetration on gender inclusion on a global scale.

To control for the endogeneity of modeled variables and cross-sectional dependence inherent with large panel datasets, the study employs the Driscoll-Kraay Fixed Effects (DKFE) and the system Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) estimators for a panel of 142 countries from 1996 to 2020.

The empirical findings from the DKFE and system GMM estimators reveal that strong institutions significantly enhance gender inclusion. Moreover, by disaggregating institutional quality into various governance indicators, we show that besides corruption control, which has a positive but insignificant effect on women’s empowerment, other governance indicators significantly enhance gender inclusion. Furthermore, there is evidence that various ICT measures promote gender inclusion.

The study results suggest that policymakers in developing countries should implement stringent measures to curb corruption. Moreover, policymakers in low-income countries should create avenues to facilitate women’s access to ICTs. Hence, policymakers in low-income countries should create and equip ICT training centers and render them accessible to all categories of women. Furthermore, developed countries with high-tech knowledge could help developing countries by organizing free training workshops and sensitization campaigns concerning the use of ICTs vis-à-vis women empowerment in various fields of life.

The present study fills a significant research gap by comprehensively exploring the nexuses between governance, ICT penetration, and the socio-politico-economic dimensions of gender inclusion from a global perspective. Besides the paucity of studies in this regard, the few existing studies have either been focused on region and country-specific case studies in developed or developing economies. Moreover, this study is timely, given the importance placed on gender inclusion (SDG5), quality of institutions (SDG16), and ICT penetration (SDG9) in the 2015–2030 global development agenda.

As women’s position in the economy and society is often explained by cultural factors, this study aims to verify whether the observed changes in female empowerment in the region of Central and East European (CEE) countries of the European Union (EU) are associated with masculinity as a cultural trait.

The authors apply the k-means clustering method to group CEE countries into clusters with similar levels of female empowerment in two time points – 2013 and 2019. Next, the authors examine the clusters and cross-reference them with the national culture’s masculinity to explore the interrelations between female empowerment and cultural traits in the CEE countries and their development in time.

The analyses reveal that female empowerment is not uniform or stable across the CEE countries. The masculinity level is not strongly related to women’s position in these countries, and changes in female empowerment are not closely linked to masculinity.

Despite the tumultuous history of women’s empowerment in the CEE countries, the issues related to gender equality and cultural traits pertaining to the region are relatively understudied in the literature. By focusing on the CEE region, the authors fill the gap in examining the independencies between female empowerment and cultural masculinity.