Bayissa, F.W., Smits, J. and Ruben, R. (2018) ‘The Multidimensional Nature of Women’s Empowerment: Beyond the Economic Approach’, Journal of International Development, 30(4), pp. 661–690.
The author began the article by explaining the fact that women empowerment is a multidimensional process which encompasses economic, socio-cultural, familial, legal, political and psychological dimensions. Ideally, it’s believed that economic inequality is the cause of wider inequality that women face in their life, the improvement of which will lead others to improve. Historically, women empowerment was launched by the United Nations in 2000 as one of the eight millennium development goals that will be implemented within 15 years. Even though great efforts were made by government and development organisations to realise the plan, it was not sufficiently achieved and discrimination against women in access to resources continued.
Actions taken by the Ethiopian government towards women empowerment is appreciated by the author. The policy reform, particularly 1993 FDRE constitution which grants equal rights to women and men in all spheres of life including marriage, property, inheritance, and bodily integrity are appreciated. Further, the legal prohibition of cultural practices that affect women’s welfare like FGM/C, Polygamy, and early marriage is considered as a breakthrough action taken by the government. However, gender inequality in Ethiopia is still scoring the highest in the world. According to the Human Development Report of 2013, Ethiopia ranked 121 out of 151 countries in the gender inequality index. This shows that women in Ethiopia are not enjoying equal rights with men and there are different factors contributing to this. To curb this challenge through structural mechanisms and facilitate women’s empowerment, the government of Ethiopia and other developmental organisations have accelerated the formation of women work groups with financial support, business training, finance management skill, market integration, microfinance service and other support.
The study was focused on Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia with a primary focus on women working groups engaged in pepper production. Accordingly, 508 women from 102, in the pepper and other spices processing business were randomly selected to participate in the study. Structured individual and group interviews were used to collect data from the study participants.
The author attempted to analyse the connection between women’s economic empowerment and decision making role at the household level. It’s assumed that when women are economically empowered their control over resources increases so as their decision making role at household level. However, this study also presented the other side of the argument which stated that an increase in women’s income is associated with longer working hours which in return results in overburden and busyness as a result of which they are unable to participate in household affairs including decision making roles.
The author further argued that the economic dimension of empowerment is loosely related to the other five dimensions identified by the author. Thus it’s recommended that interventions that focus on the economic dimension of women’s empowerment is not an end by itself but will lead to improvements in the other dimensions of empowerment. Accordingly,to promoting women’s empowerment in the study area, a broad package of interventions is needed in order to achieve improvement in all dimensions
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