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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the political effects of microcredit. The author provides the theoretical connections between microfinance and political empowerment and tests them in the context of Central Asia and the Caucasus, a region that is significantly lagging in political development and yet has a growing microfinance potential.

The author conducted a total of 100 in-depth interviews with microcredit clients in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan in June 2010 and January 2011, respectively. The author chose my client samples randomly from two of the largest non-governmental microfinance institutions in these countries.

The findings of the survey reveal that microloans have only led to modest improvements in the socioeconomic status of the clients and had almost no effect on their political empowerment. Disaggregating the data further in terms of gender, type of loan and location of credit does not change the overall trends but reveals that to the extent that any political empowerment took place, group clients (mostly women) in urban settings were more aware and involved in political issues than individual clients in the villages.

Even with a carefully thought-out design, it is not clear how much the responses reflect the true and complicated impact of microfinance on the clients’ lives, a challenge that may be overcome in future research with focus group analysis or an ethnographic analysis of microcredit clients over a long period of time.

Notwithstanding these shortcomings, these observations can help inform microfinance institutions, donor organizations and governments about the true potential of microfinance. A realization of the limits of this unique development tool may prove useful in reorienting the goals of foreign aid and designing a more effective approach to development.

Despite the extensive literature on the economic and social effects of microcredit, very little attention has been given to how economic empowerment generated by microcredit can translate into political empowerment at the individual level. This paper lays out the theoretical reasons for why such a relationship might exist and tests these hypotheses systematically in two countries, taking into account gender, type of loan instrument and location of the loan.

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 contribute to knowledge and theory building in youth empowerment and entrepreneurship development.

This paper critically examines the Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria (YouWiN) programme and its relevance as a youth economic empowerment programme through the lens of the UNDP Youth Strategy entry points for promoting economic empowerment of youth and extant literature on critical youth empowerment using participatory development theories.

While YouWiN is a significant intervention towards entrepreneurship development, it presents some flaws and limitations in the design and implementation process, which may challenge sustainable economic development. Hence, there is a need to explore the millennials empowerment paradigm in light of three key complementary action-oriented approaches to youth entrepreneurship development.

This paper proposes three key complementary action-oriented approaches to youth entrepreneurship policy/programme design, implementation and evaluation for the multilateral agencies, private and voluntary sectors. These are in the form of facilitating participatory engagement and diversity, managing drivers (push/pull factors) of entrepreneurship, and ensuring access to enablers/support. There is the need for further debate and critical inputs to improve theory building towards a normative framework in youth empowerment and entrepreneurship. This contributes to ending poverty, and promoting intergenerational equity and sustainable development.

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.

Women empowerment is an aid against discrimination and exploitation. Empowerment to women helps minimize the gender gap, achieve equality and promote self-worth to make independent choices and to influence social change. It is seen that women empowerment and economic development are two sides of the same coin. According to sustainable development goals by World Development Indicator, by 2030 their aim is to empower all women and girls by achieving gender equality. Being the first teacher of a child and to ably run a household from front females are the pillars of a strong and thriving society. Educating and empowering women will usher us in a society where each member is contributing to the betterment of society; which gradually will uplift the economic condition. As stated by Mahatma Gandhi “If you educate a man you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman you educate an entire family.” Therefore, this study aims to investigate the status of women in the field of health, education, labor force participation and socioeconomic empowerment in selected South Asian countries, namely, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Secondary data has been used which are collected from the website and data center of United Nations Development Programme and World Bank. The research focuses on the comparative study on the South Asian countries, namely Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka regarding gender equality and women empowerment in the sectors like education, health, political and economic involvement and opportunity.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between levels of socioeconomic development and subsequent trends in fertility among the states of India. Based on the Theory of Demographic Transition, this study tests the hypothesis: The higher the level of socioeconomic development in 1993, the greater the subsequent percentage of decrease in fertility rates between 1999 and 2006 among the states of India.

The study utilizes Pearson's r correlation and linear multiple regression analysis on three National Family Health Surveys data to predict two measures of decline in fertility from socioeconomic indicators.

The findings support the theory of demographic transition in large measure revealing that the overall level of socioeconomic development is directly related to subsequent declines in fertility among the states of India.

Correlations between state‐wide indicators are based on sample data of which margins of error and response rates are unknown.

The study suggests that the empowerment of women through education, employment opportunities and exposure to the mass media reduces fertility.

Population control in India is extremely important for the future welfare of all of its society members.

Although previous research has shown cross‐sectional correlations between fertility and socioeconomic development, this is the first time correlations between socioeconomic development and subsequent trends in fertility have been measured. This is methodologically important because Demographic Transition Theory hypothesizes a lag between modernization and fertility decline. Rather than correlating level of economic development with current fertility, this study correlates level of economic development with the subsequent dynamic changes in fertility.

Aims to methodologically explain a phenomenological model with empirical contents for modelling ethics in socioeconomic development. Addresses a circular causality between state variables and policy variables for the case of socioeconomic development of Indonesia with ethics and values as important focus required for the private sector role.

This is a methodological paper with good empirical content prescribing policy recommendations for the role of ethics and values in the private sector in Indonesian socioeconomic development. Philosophy of science heads off the methodological part. This is combined with contextual elements of Islamic development financing instruments to highlight the need for ethics and values in the development of Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation.

The paper highlights how the Indonesia private sector and the Government need to corroborate the focus of ethics and values in the national development plan. This is a novel approach to modelling ethics and values and estimating it by circular causation system of regression equations answering the theme of social wellbeing through socioeconomic development.

The true empirical work would have used complexity methods. In the paper the simple approach has been maintained by using the system of circular causation related regression equations. This is part of an on‐going research project on unity of knowledge and its empirical application to specific problems of science and society including the social economy. Thus, the project presents challenging field of academic investigation for many.

Provides policy recommendations on how ethics and values ought to be incorporated in the socioeconomic development plan through private sector participation in Indonesia. The need for the role of private sector ethical consciousness in Socioeconomic development of Indonesia is highlighted.

This is an original contribution in the area of phenomenological investigation on ethics and how it can be modelled and applied in specific circumstances (Indonesia private sector development within her development plan). The paper brings forth a challenging concept along lines of a scientific research program that looks at the methodology of unity of knowledge as the phenomenological basis of development planning and then empirically investigates this methodological conception through modelling of ethics and values.

This paper aims to examine the gender differences in various measures of travel behavior for a large-sized Indian city, taking into account the existing class differences.

Stratified random sampling technique is used to collect primary data for travel behavior. The collected data is then differentiated on the basis of socioeconomic characteristics and gender. Descriptive statistics are used for analysis.

The findings confirm that, women mostly walk and men use motorized vehicles. With an improvement in socioeconomic status, women switch over to public transport and men continue to ride motorized vehicles. While the number of women making everyday trips declines with a rise in socioeconomic status, the number of men rises.

The study points out at the need for development of an adequate infrastructure of nonmotorized transport and public transport in the city which attends to not only the issue of environmental quality but also of women’s empowerment.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time a comprehensive analysis of differences in travel behavior between men and women on the basis of socioeconomic status is carried out in this region. This analysis will facilitate the policy makers in understanding the inconsistencies in transport demand between the two groups of population.

Women entrepreneurs are considered here as a backbone of economic growth and development. This research is conducted to explain the role of microfinance banks in women's financial, socioeconomic, and political empowerment. The sample was gathered from the customers of microfinance banks operating in the specific areas of Sukkur, Pano Aqil, and Khairpur districts of Sindh province. Women perception about the microfinance bank was found to be positive as they give positive feedback about the banks. According to the findings, limited knowledge about business and financial matters make it highly challenging for women entrepreneurs to start and run business smoothly. However, most of the women are living separate with their husbands, and due to more children, women enjoy freedom of mobility.

The majority of poor women in Africa live in rural areas, and investigating their empowerment status and factors influencing their empowerment is therefore a tool for overcoming poverty. This paper investigated the dimensions and determinants of women's empowerment in rural Nigeria.

This study used data from the 2013 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS). Information on women's agencies, resource, income, leadership and time/workload was used to construct women empowerment index (WEI). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and logit regression model.

Most of the decisions were made by the women's spouses, while decisions on how to spend her earnings were jointly made with her spouse. A majority of the women did not justify beating nor owned businesses. A larger percentage of rural women were disempowered than men; agency had the highest relative contribution to women's disempowerment; and women in the northern zones of Nigeria were less empowered than their southern counterparts. Husband's education and her age were inversely related to women's empowerments while her education, household size and being the household head were directly related to it.

There is a dearth of empirical studies on multidimensional women's empowerment in rural Nigeria. This study therefore provides a clear understanding of drivers of women's empowerment in rural Nigeria, and its findings are to serve as guiding documents for policymakers in designing gender-responsive interventions programs and implementation of a genuine gender mainstreaming in rural development policy in Nigeria. Further, the findings would contribute to the growing body of knowledge, especially empirical studies, on women's empowerment in Nigeria and the developing world.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-07-2019-0455