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Abstract: Women empowerment is an emerging concept that became a core and essential goal for any development
initiative in most countries. Consequently, many scholars have studied the definition of women empowerment and much
effort is made by private, public and third sectors to support and empower women. However, there is no unified definition
for women empowerment until now. Also, there are no defined measurements that measure the effectiveness of such effort.
Accordingly, this paper focuses on women empowerment measurement and how can concerned parties figure out if women
are empowered or not. Some researchers argue that women empowerment can be measured through women’s control of
their income and decision-making process. On the other hand, some link it with women’s rights for education, political
participation, healthy life and gender equality. Consequently, the paper suggests a new approach for empowerment
measurement, which depends on the assessment of personal skills and Key Performance Indicators (women empowerment
indicators - WEI’s) that measure women empowerment before and after receiving an empowerment activity, based on a
pre-defined reference (targets) for each WEI. Where the skills assessment focuses on assessing the personal skills needed
for women to be empowered, such as self-confidence. On the other hand, the WEI’s are divided into personal, social and
technical WEI’s that measure the level of women empowerment in terms of these three aspects. The paper uses primary
and secondary data, where the first author collects primary data from the field and explores the literature to find studies
related to women empowerment measurement. Hence, primary data collection and analysis follows qualitative data
collection and analysis techniques, since the first author has interviewed a group of decision makers who work on women
empowerment programs. The main output of this paper is proposing an approach for measuring women empowerment,
which has the value of maximizing the benefits of women empowerment and ensuring that women have received the right
services, which enable them to be empowered. Accordingly, these measurements can be used as a tool for all individuals or
entities that are providing women empowerment activities.
Keywords: women empowerment, women empowerment indicators, assessment of women's personal skills, women
empowerment measurement and women empowerment definition
1. Introduction
Nowadays, we are living in a changing and fast-moving world that needs well-prepared individuals who are able
to adapt with these changes, be a part of any development plan and be a step ahead from other individuals who
are just following the change and reacting based on it. Having these individuals contributes to creating a mature
society that directs the changing wheel to the benefits of individuals, societies and economies. However, having
these individuals requires creating a balanced society that provides equal opportunities and exerts effort for
building individuals who have the necessary and required skills, knowledge, mentality and experience to be an
effective part in their societies.
So, in order to be a part of the change and contribute in enabling individuals and creating a balanced society,
where both sexes are responsible for cultural and economic growth, the authors have decided to focus on
supporting all concerned parties who work on enabling women to be an effective part in economies and
societies, through helping such parties to sustain their efforts and to ensure that women are offered the right
services they need to be empowered.
Women are capable and able to be economically independent and have all the necessary skills to do that. At the
same time, such parties are making efforts to support women and utilize their capabilities for the benefit of
themselves, their families, their societies and their economies. Unfortunately, no effort is paid to measure
women’s improvement and empowerment. Accordingly, after deep research, the first author suggests an
approach for measuring women empowerment through personal skills assessment and women empowerment
indicators (WEIs) assessment, in order to maximize women’s benefits and create a continuous pipeline of joint
efforts that help women to be developed and empowered based on a defined reference and baseline.
2. Research methodology
This paper has built based on primary and secondary research. For the secondary data, the first author has
explored the literature, in order to find the latest research regarding women empowerment definition and
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women empowerment measurement. Also, it has been decided to collect primary data, through following a
qualitative data collection technique, which is “interviews”, in order to ask the interviewees about their opinions
regarding women empowerment measurement.
The targeted audience for interviews were Jordanian entities and startups who are supporting women and
working on women empowerment. Table 1 shows a general description for interviewees, in terms of their role
and their entity type.
Table 1: Interviewees information
Interviewee Job Role Entity type
(1) Founder Startup that empowers Jordanian women, through cooking, as it provides women with a
platform to sell their products.
(2) Founder Association for empowering Jordanian women, through producing and promoting
handicraft products.
(3) Board An association that supports professional and business Jordanian women, through
member providing business-to-business and personal networking and training courses.
(4) Co- Startup that empowers Jordanian women, through providing and connecting them with
Founder home-based jobs.
(5) CEO Company that employs Jordanian women to do handicraft products, after training.
(6) Founder Initiative that empowers Jordanian women who are studying in university, through
offering training courses, awareness sessions and promoting their products.
(7) CEO and Consultation Company that applies women empowerment projects in Jordan, as they help
Owner women in all the business stages from ideation to launching to growth.
Figure 1 shows the main decisions regarding the data collection for this paper, in terms of types of data, in
addition to data collection techniques (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2016).
Interviews
(semi structured,
electronic)
Primary Data Qualitative data
Data Collection
Secondary data Literature
Consequently, many scholars have studied the definition of women empowerment, without putting effort into
reaching a unified definition for it till now. However, Mosedale has argued that women empowerment is one of
the challenging concepts to be applied and measured, due to the following facts: (Mosedale, 2005).
Disempowering a party causes the need of empowerment. Consequently, the need for women
empowerment is because they are disempowered compared with men.
Women empowerment shall be claimed and asked by women themselves, as it cannot be gifted from a third
party. However, the role of third parties is to support women while they are empowering themselves, in
addition to preparing suitable conditions for empowerment.
The concept of empowerment can be achieved if women have control of their own decisions and able to
take it.
Women empowerment is a continuous process that does not have a certain goal, limit or end. As the results
of women empowerment can be measured relatively to other women or to women’s previous situation
before empowerment.
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So, in order to study the definition of women empowerment deeply, the first author has explored and analysed
the definitions suggested by six scholars. Table 2 shows the definitions of women empowerment based on the
opinion of these scholars and summarises the main concept of each definition.
Table 2: Women empowerment definitions
Author Definition Main concept
The United “Having access to and control over the means to make a living on a The ability to
Nations sustainable and long-term basis and receiving the material benefits of this secure a
Development access and control.” sustainable living
Fund for means.
Women
(Mosedale,
2005)
(Carr, 2000) “Women empowerment goes beyond short-term goals of increasing women’s Having power
access to income and looks for longer term sustainable benefits, not only in relationships in
terms of changes to laws and policies that constrain women’s participation in homes,
and benefits from development, but also in terms of power relationships at community and
the household, community and market levels.” market.
(Mosedale, “The process by which women redefine and extend what is possible for them The process of
2005) to be and do in situations where they have been restricted, compared to men, extending and
from being and doing. Alternatively, women’s empowerment is the process by redefining what
which women redefine gender roles in ways which extend their possibilities for is possible for
being and doing.” women.
(Kabeer, 1999) “It is about the process by which those who have been denied the ability to To gain the right
make strategic life choices acquire such an ability.” of making
strategic choices
(Karl, 1995) “It is a process of awareness and capacity building leading to greater To have better
participation, to greater decision-making power and control and to decision-making
transformative action.” power and
control.
(Juhod, 2016) “It means equality in economic resources, training, and knowledge that The equality in
enhances women’s economic position by removing all obstacles that prevent economic
their empowerment from the economic side and guarantee women access to resources,
full participation in the national economic structure and equality in access to training, and
economic resources that include land, capital and technologies. Additionally, knowledge.
women should have the right to access vocational training, knowledge and
means of communication that are considered effective tools for enhancing the
economic position of women.”
Accordingly, it can be noticed from Table 2 that the concept of women empowerment focuses on giving women
the power and resources to own and control their decisions, to expand the possible limits and to secure a
sustainable income. So, the women empowerment definition that can be concluded, based on the discussed
definitions is:
“Extending and redefining what is possible for women, through changing the laws that limit their
participation in communities and economies and limit their benefits from any development
initiative. In addition to giving them the power in their homes, communities and market, as well as
creating equality in economic, training and knowledge resources, in order to give them the access
to secure a sustainable living and have the control to make strategic decisions related to their
lives”.
Evans has argued that in order to empower women and achieve the goals behind that, there are prerequisites
that shall be met before, which are; having social places, where women can discuss and improve their ideas,
also having role models for women who were empowered and broke the rules. In addition to having an ideology
that justifies the reasons behind giving women their rights, and finally a network that facilitates and helps with
empowering women and makes a social movement for it (Evans, 1979).
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to their participation in the decision-making process at their home (Kantor, 2003). Also, Kabeer has added that
women empowerment is a combination of social and economic aspects, so it can be measured through the
following (Kabeer, 1999a):
Women’s freedom, which represents their right for education and their right to move freely.
Equality in gender roles and decision making between men and women.
Equality in marriage and divorce aspects.
Financial independence, where women control their income and how it is shared with the family.
Marriage advantages, in other words, women have chosen their husbands, where the age and educational
differences between them are small.
Additionally, Mason and Smith have argued that women empowerment is deployed in order to enhance
women’s access to education, employment and healthcare. So, it can be measured by the following (Mason and
Smith, 2003):
Having the power of economic decision making, where women participate in family’s economic decisions,
especially for the decisions related to the money they own.
Having the power of decisions related to family size, where women can participate in decisions related to
the number of children they may have.
Having the right to move freely, where women can move and visit any places without any restrictions.
Husband control, where husbands are controlling women by force or not, and if women are afraid to
disagree with their husbands’ opinion or not.
Finally, there are many global measurements, which measure women empowerment performance in countries
across the world, such as the Gender-related Development Index (GDI), the Gender Inequality Index (GII) and
Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM).
However, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in their “Human Development Report” has
published these measures. In these indexes, UNDP gives a number or index for each country (Charmes and
Wieringa, 2003). Also, they divide countries into main four categories, which are; very high human development,
high human development, medium human development and low human development countries (United
Nations Development Program, 2016). Table 3 shows the differences between these three indexes, in terms of
their description and indicators.
Table 3: Differences between the UNDP indexes
GEM GII GDI
Element (Charmes and Wieringa, (United Nations Development (United Nations Development
2003) Program, 2016) Program, 2016)
Description “It measures the inequality “It measures the gender inequality, “It measures the gender gaps
between males and females, based on three dimensions” in human development
based on three dimensions” achievements, based on three
dimensions”
Dimensions Female share in political Health, by measuring the maternal Long and healthy life.
power (seats in Perlman) mortality ratio and adolescent Knowledge.
Female share in managerial birth. Standard of living.
positions in administrative Empowerment, through measuring
and professional sectors the percentage of parliamentary
Women income seats occupied by women and
percentage of women who have at
least secondary education.
Women labor market participation
To conclude, there are several ways that measure women empowerment, which were suggested by scholars,
such as women’s economic control and participation, decision making participation in family, education right
and level, movement right, equality in marriage and divorce aspects, husband control, political participation,
share in managerial position (labor market) and healthy life. Table 4 shows a comparison summary of all women
empowerment measurement for each scholar or index mentioned before.
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However, women empowerment measures have been taken further in this paper in the primary data collection,
as a question related to women empowerment measurement has been asked of interviewees. Accordingly, the
findings of this section and the findings of interviews will be used to suggest a new approach to measuring
women empowerment.
Accordingly, Table 6 shows a summary of women empowerment measurements based on interviews and the
scholars’ (literature) points of view.
It can be noticed that both parties agreed that women empowerment can be measured, based on women’s
economic control and participation, decision making participation, education right and level, movement right,
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equality in marriage and divorce aspects, political participation and the release from the social barriers
surrounding women.
Table 6: Women’s empowerment measurement comparison
Mason and
Measurement element Kantor Kabeer GEM GII GDI Interviewees
Smith
Economic control and participation √ √ √ √ √ √
Decision making participation √ √ √ √
Education right and level √ √ √
Movement right √ √
Equality in marriage and divorce √
Get rid of social barriers √ √
Political participation (seats in √
√ √
Parliament)
Share in managerial position √ √
Healthy life √ √
Equal gender opportunities √
Business Growth √
Personal development √
Enhancing family’s/men’s mentality √
Expanding network base √
The assessment of women's personal skills depends on defining some personal skills that are required in
women’s personalities, in order to be empowered and to be economically independent (open their businesses).
The main steps that shall be followed, in order to measure women empowerment through skills assessment can
be summarised by the following:
Defining the required skills with the minimum level of each one (basic, competent and advanced).
Meet women before receiving empowerment activity and measure their level in each personal skill.
Identify the skills that need improvement to reach the required level.
Meet women after receiving the empowerment activity and measure their level in the personal skills.
Identify and analyse the skills that have been improved and the ones that have not been improved.
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) has argued in their women’s entrepreneurship report that a group
of factors contribute in women’s entrepreneurial perception and their abilities to open their own business,
which are networking, self-confidence (to reduce the fear of failure factor), motivation, entrepreneurial
intention and having a clear vision (GEM, 2017). Accordingly, the first author has defined the needed skills for
measuring women empowerment, based on these factors. Table 7 shows the definition of the skills and the
required level.
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The assessment based on women empowerment indicators depends on defining certain key performance
indicators that measure the improvement of women after receiving an empowerment activity.
The indicators are divided into three categories, which are: personal indicators, social indicators and business/
technical indicators. The personal indicators measure how women are empowered in the personal level, in terms
of work life balance, decision-making control and entrepreneurial personal skills improvement. Also, the social
indicators measure how women are supported by society and family. On the other hand, the business indicators
measure how women start and open their businesses and how they become economically independent.
However, the main steps that shall be followed, in order to measure women empowerment through the women
empowerment indicators can be summarised by the following:
Build women empowerment indicators (WEI’s), as mentioned in Table 8.
Meet woman, to assess her based on WEI’s.
Document the current situation of the woman.
Meet woman to assess her after receiving an empowerment activity.
Compare woman's empowerment level before and after receiving the empowerment activity.
Table 8: WEI’s assessment
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7. Conclusion
Women empowerment is a critical concept that has deep social, personal and economical effect on women, as
it is linked with women’s ability to control their decisions, secure and control their income, have power in their
homes, participate in economic development and have the right to learn and improve. Women empowerment
can be developed, through creating a supportive eco-system that incubates women and provides an
environment that engages them with their selves, families, societies and economies. However, securing a
sustainable empowerment that has a tangible and continuous effect on women, requires defining some
measurements, which test the impact and ensure that women have received the right efforts that enable them
to be empowered and be economically independent. The primary and secondary researches have agreed that
women empowerment can be measured by women’s decision making participation, economic participation,
education rights, movement rights, political participation, personal development, gender equality and
expanding the network.
From this point of view, the first author has suggested a new approach for women empowerment measurement,
that depends on women’s personal skills assessment and women empowerment indicators assessment, where
women are assessed before and after receiving an empowerment activity, based on a defined skills, such as self
confidence, motivation, networking and having a clear vision. In addition to a define personal, social and
technical empowerment indicators, such as percentage of working hours, percentage of decision making
contribution, percentage of family support and percentage of sales increase.
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This paper has contributed in recommending a comprehensive “women empowerment definition” based on the
findings of the secondary data. Also, this research has contributed in recommending a practical measurement
for women empowerment, based on primary and secondary data. Moreover, the paper has contributed in
enhancing the author’s knowledge regarding women empowerment.
On the other hand, there are many recommendations for future researches, such as applying the measurements
and testing the suggested approach by one of the entities who are involved in women empowerment activities,
studying the critical personal skills that affect women and have major contribution in their empowerment and
dividing women empowerment measurements into levels, based on women’s maturity and empowerment level.
Finally, there was not enough space in this paper to provide examples of applying these ideas to a sample of
women. The second author assisted with supervision of this research and preparation of this paper.
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