1. Economic versus non-economic empowerment: a false dichotomy?
Professor Naila Kabeer
London School of Economics and Political Science

2. Some definitions of empowerment
Women’s empowerment involves gaining a voice, having mobility and establishing a public presence. Although women can empower themselves by obtaining some form of control over different aspects of their daily lives, empowerment also suggests the need to gain some control over power structures, or to change them (Johnson, 1992)
.. the exercise of informed choice within an expanding framework of information, knowledge and analysis…a process which must enable women to discover new possibilities, new options…a growing repertoire of choices…to independently struggle for changes in their material conditions of existence, their personal lives and their treatment in the public sphere….The process of challenging existing power relations, and of gaining greater control over the sources of power…. Batliwala 1993.
Autonomy is the power to control our lives, that is a sense of internal strength and confidence to face life, the right to determine our choices in life and influence the direction of social change (APDC).

3. Dimensions and domains
Women’s empowerment …’touches on many different aspects of change in women’s lives, each important in themselves, but also in their inter-relationships with other aspects. It touches on women’s sense of self-worth and social identity; their willingness and ability to question their subordinate status and identity; their capacity to exercise strategic control over their own lives and to renegotiate their relationships with others who matter to them; and their ability to participate on equal terms with men in reshaping the societies in which they live in ways that contribute to a more just and democratic distribution of power and possibilities’ (Kabeer, 2008)

4. Some definitions of economic empowerment
World Bank ‘ Economic empowerment is about making markets work for women (at the policy level) and empowering women to compete (at the agency level) 2007
UNDP: women’s economic empowerment can be achieved by targeting initiatives to expanding women’s economic opportunity; strengthen their legal status and rights; and ensure their voice, inclusion and participation in economic decision-making (2008) OECD-DAC GENDERNET: women’s economic empowerment is their capacity to participate in, contribute to and benefit from growth processes in ways that recognise the value of their contributions, respect their dignity and make it possible for them to negotiate a fairer distribution of the benefits of growth (2011)
SIDA: ‘the process which increases women’s real power over economic decisions that influence their lives and priorities in society. Women’s economic empowerment can be achieved through equal access to and control over critical economic resources and opportunities, and the elimination of structural gender inequalities in the labour market, including a better sharing of unpaid care work (2009)
ICRW: ‘a women is economically empowered when she has both the ability to succeed and advance economically and the power to make and act on economic decisions’ 2011

5. ? ? ? ? ? A Theory of Change Structures of Constraint Livelihood
interventions
Resources
Agency
Economic
outcomes ? ? ? ? ?
Empowerment
outcomes

6. A false dichotomy
Upstream failures to take account of the economic and non-economic constraints that underlie the unequal terms on which men and women enter and participate in the economy undermine the possibilities for women’s economic empowerment
Downstream failures to promote the non-economic dimensions of women’s empowerment can undermine the possibilities for citizenship and gender justice (and place limits on the processes of economic empowerment)

7. Individual and collective empowerment (in it for the long haul)
“You can tell as soon as you see a working woman. If she works and earns an income of her own, then there is a different sense about them. They have mental strength” (Shathi Begum, married, Class 10, subsistence production)
‘ I have learnt what it means to win. It is not about the outcome but to win is to dare to start the fight for your rights’. Ma Wai, the woman leader of the workers striking at the Nut knitting factory