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In 1995, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) launched the quantitative Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) in its Human Development Report (1999). The GEM has been a feature of this report ever since. In 2004/05, a group of researchers from Edith Cowan University (Perth, Australia) intended to rely on the GEM to study the experiences of factory women in two of Sri Lanka's Export Processing Zones (EPZs). The experience of this team – at the heart of this chapter – is that the quantitative measures of the GEM, particularly the specific ways in which it causes researchers to conceptualise gender and empowerment, are not adequate to understand the nuanced and complex processes of women's experiences in regards to empowerment. The team's experience caused it to question the relevance and utility of the GEM, and in turn, its sole reliance on a quantitative methodology. As a result, the researchers from Edith Cowan changed their original methodological approach and adopted a stronger qualitative emphasis. In turn, this provided a far more realistic insight into the concepts of gender and empowerment, and indeed the lived experiences of the women it sought to represent.

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.

To investigate the association between country-level differences in childcare enrollment, the presence of affirmative action policy, and female parliamentary representation and individual-level conflict between work and family.

This study applies data from the 2002 International Social Survey Program (n = 14,000 + ) for respondents in 29 countries and pairs them with macro-level measures of childcare enrollment, the presence of affirmative action policy, and female parliamentary representation. I estimate the model using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM 7) and also assess cross-level interactions by gender and parental status.

The models show that female parliamentary representation has a robust negative association with individual-level reports of work–family and family–work conflict. These associations do not vary by gender or parental status. Also, mothers report less family–work conflict in countries with more expansive childcare enrollment, indicating that this welfare policy benefits the intended group.

This research implies that greater female parliamentary representation has widespread benefits to all citizens’, rather than just women’s or mothers’, work–family and family–work conflict. Additional longitudinal research would benefit this area of study.

This research suggests that increasing female parliamentary representation at the country-level may promote work–life balance at the individual-level. It also indicates that public childcare enrollment benefits women through lower family–work conflict which may encourage continuous maternal labor force participation and reduce economic gender inequality.

This chapter builds on an emerging area of work–family research applying multilevel modeling to draw empirical links between individual work–family experiences and macro-level structural variation.

Purpose – The main objective of this research is to explore the impacts of globalization on gender empowerment.

Methodology – This research uses a design that combines lagged cross-sectional and cross-sectional analyses. We have used ordinary least square regression. The sample size for this research is 48–70 nation-states. We have used gender empowerment measurement as an indicator of decision-making power that women in a society gain in decision making as a group.

Findings – Our findings illustrate variable effects of global economy on gender empowerment. Higher commodity concentration significantly lowers women's access to the formal and informal labor force and women's decision-making power after controlling for economic development, culture, and state's location in the global economy. Foreign direct investment lowers women's share in both the formal and informal labor force and women's decision-making power, while increasing women's share of secondary education. Thus, this research examines wider dimensions of women's experiences. We also find that some policies have positive effects, whereas others have negative effects on gender empowerment.

Originality/value of the chapter – Previous research on globalization and development has discussed the impacts of globalization on women's empowerment. However, researchers have either used women's access to formal work or education or gender development scores as an indicator of women's empowerment. Researchers have not captured women's empowerment completely. We have overcome this limitation by defining empowerment as a complex of access to resources (access to education, formal and informal labor force) and decision-making power (gender empowerment scores).

This study aims to examine the impact of social media (SM) on the creation of digital entrepreneurship by female (irrespective of age) and youth male (aged 18–29 years) entrepreneurs, investigate if SM empowers those entrepreneurs and compare the empowerment characteristics between female and youth male entrepreneurs before and after starting their businesses.

Self-assessment questionnaires were collected from a sample of 408 Egyptian female and youth male digital entrepreneurs from Greater Cairo, whose businesses had been operating for more than one year.

The research showed the following four results: Of the surveyed entrepreneurs, 95% asserted that without SM, they would not have started their businesses. Female and youth male entrepreneurs are empowered both on personal and relational levels, and women’s empowerment is more evident in the latter. Before digital entrepreneurship, youth males have significantly higher averages than female entrepreneurs in almost all empowerment characteristics, whereas after digital entrepreneurship, female entrepreneurs have significantly higher averages in making decisions related to investment, personal education and personal health, as well as those of other household members. Female entrepreneurs are relatively more empowered than youth males after digital entrepreneurship when each group is compared with its initial status.

This study’s originality stems from using a large sample of entrepreneurs, including youth males, not just females; employing a more structured, comprehensive measure of empowerment than found in the literature because it included the rarely used psychological dimension; considering more than one SM tool and comparing empowerment of females to that of youth males.

Gender empowerment measure (GEM) is an assessment about inequalities between men's and women's opportunities in a country. The concept of empowerment can be explored through three interrelated dimensions: agency, resources and achievements. Agency refers to processes by which choices and abilities are made, resources are the medium through which agency is exercised and achievements are the outcomes of agency. Specifically, this paper seeks to examine an indicator of GEM specifically in the achievements in politics based on data from selected developed and developing countries.

A GEM indicator based on percentage of female parliamentarian taken from secondary sources such as United Nations Development Programme was used in the analysis of empowerment. The developed countries were represented by Norway, Australia and Japan; while the developing countries are Malaysia, the Philippines and China.

There are variations in the achievement indicator in terms of percentage of female parliamentarians in the two groups of countries. Reasons for variations are explained.

Although the analysis was limited to the secondary data of the selected countries only, the results may have valuable implications to women's studies and human resource development practitioners particularly at institutional and policy‐making levels of the respective countries.

GEM is a concept which is lacking in terms of definition. Thus, the study could contribute to a fuller understanding of one of the GEM indicators, inevitably towards constructive solutions to improve the participation of women in public function.

The purpose of this study is to emphasize on women empowerment that leads to a new paradigm shift of Saudi woman into labor force. This study also outlines how Saudi Government has formulated several policies and reforms to empower women in the workplace, especially gender equality. Also, this study will discourse a clear idea on numerous measures initiated by Saudi Government on how to empower Saudi women in the labor force and what would be the impact of women empowerment and gender equality on Saudi economy.

The research methodology has undertaken the Saudi feminization approach that emphasizes solely on uplifting women empowerment within the context of social changes that are arising in Saudi Arabia. The data analyzed comes from the primary data statistics report that depicts 10 years of data from general authority for statistics (GaStat) for the period ranging from 2010–2016 (Q2) and 2016 –2020 along with global gender gap index (GGGI) for the period of 2006, 2017 and 2020. Additionally, data was considered from the latest articles, Saudi news, statistics revealed by “Pew Research Center,” international labor organization (ILO, 2020), which depicts the involvement of Saudi women at international level.

The data were analyzed from GaStat for the period ranging from 2010–2016 (Q2) and 2016–2020 along with GGGI for the period of 2006, 2017 and 2020 that has shown drastic changes in inspiring Saudi women empowerment pertaining to the labor market, the educational field, economic participation and gender equality. The most interesting point was that the total Saudi employed persons, especially males are double of females’ ratio. It depicts that until Q3 and Q4, 2018 females were still facing unemployment phase and their economic participation was less in comparison with male Saudis. However, there found to have a new paradigm shift; rising of Saudi women in various sectors in the year 2019 where unemployment decreased to 5.7%, labor force participation at 58.8%.

Saudi Arabia is stringing very hard to develop its economy over the next decade and beyond and have strong-minded to strengthen the contribution of women to development of society and economy. Currently, Saudi women have found ample job opportunities welcoming them in various sectors. Furthermore, they can work in numerous professions and fields that were formerly limited to men. According to Leyal Khalife (2019, July 1) and the statistics released by “Pew Research Center,” Saudi Arabia has experienced the highest growth rate – among G20 countries –of women joining the workforce in the past 20 years. The data revealed that women accounted for 23% of Saudi’s workforce in 2018 – a rise of 7% increase since 2018. Finally, today Saudi Arabia has shown the highest growth rate among G20 states, including Australia, Germany, Brazil and others.

The latest reforms emphasizes on minimizing the gender gap and inspire young girls to build a career path. This procedure specifies that Saudi female should formulate their tactics and approaches to encounter gender disparity and attain social fairness and equality not specific to education only but consider all the matters of life pertaining to context of male-dominating societies.

This paper aims to identify the dimensions of the political empowerment of Indian women and assess the factors responsible for the lacunas that hold women back in their potential.

The research was based on primary data collected through a personal interview method from a sample of 68 women managers working in five different sectors of the Indian economy, namely; IT, education, telecom, banking, and hospitality sector. Further, data on the five factors from a sample of 423 women employees from the above-mentioned sectors have been collected and analyzed using a multiple regression model with control variables (marital status and generation gap).

The major factors churned out that are needed for the political empowerment of women are namely, information or awareness, family support or family environment, legal environment, political environment, and personal ambitions or internal motivation.

The present study has presented new insight into the field of women and politics by providing a case study into the dimensions of political empowerment among Indian women. The pilot model developed in this study can be initiated and replicated across the land on being successful.