Dimensions of Women Empowerment: A case study of Pakistan

Abstract

IntroductionOver the last three decades, gender equality and empowerment debates are being focused.It has been realized that policies and projects without concerning the female position in the society have adverse impact on development.United NationsInternational Conference on Women in 1995, held in Beijing, stressed on the need to reduce gender inequality and to increase women empowerment.The third target of Millennium Development Goal is regarding gender equality and women empowerment.Numerous countries, regions and International Development Organizationsmade commitments to reduce gender equality as a key for sustainable economic development.The term women empowerment has different connotation which depends on social, economical, and political context in which it is used.World Bank (2001) defines "the expansion of the freedom of choices and action, which could increase women authority and control over resources and decision regarding their life."Similarly,Women empowerment is a process through which women achieve the ability to control, take ownership over resources and make strategies of life choices(Kabeer 2001).However, the process itself depends on women, through education, capacity building, skills and trainings and changes in legal and structural framework.Women empowerment covers many dimensions including social,economic, cultural, political, legal and psychological (Malhotra et al. 2002).This explains a broad variation in the concept of women empowerment.Although, these definitions are clear but there are some constraints to measure women empowerment due to lack of standardized ways.Moreover, many researchers tried to construct set of specific questions based on Population Based Primary Survey for measuring empowerment at individual level, (Kishor and Subaiya 2008).Women empowerment is preferred not only for the development of a country but also required to minimize poverty and promotes economic growth.(Chaudryet al.2012).According to United Nations Women Policy Division (2013), women empowerment need to be focused and all the development projects and policies need to be gender sensitize.In most of the developing countries, due to early marriages, high female unemploymentrate along with limited investment in them comply females to depend on men.Early marriage is one of the crucial reasons of lower participation of females in the labor marketcompared as to developed nations [ (World Bank 2007) , (Doepke et al. 2012)].Plethora of literature demonstrates that women empowerment are directly associated with contraceptive use, lower fertility, and longer birth intervals [( Gwako 1997), (Schuler et al. 1997), (Balk 1994), (Woldemicael 2009), (Upadhyay and Hindin 2005)].Furthermore, education is one of the determinants of empowerment of women which also lowers the fertility rate and improves the earnings.(Jejeebhoy1995), ( Mason 1987)].For political empowerment, education plays a crucialrole as well educated women are better informed about their legal rights and they can actively participatein political decision making process [ (Moghadam 2003), (Rihani et al. 2006)].In a patriarchal society like Pakistan, women empowerment is also very difficult to achieve as societies and communities are governed by strictly social and cultural norms.In a traditional society like Pakistan, the entire major as well as the minor decisions related to inside and outside the house are taken by the men.The worse situation has been reported for Pakistan in terms of gender equality and women empowerment.According to MDG Report (2013), Pakistan is still far away from the targets of 2015 MDGs in terms of access to education, gender equality and women empowerment which are reflected by child mortality, maternal health and nutrition (Government of Pakistan 2013).