research paper on women's empowerment

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• Published: 07 April 2023

Barriers and interventions on the way to empower women through financial inclusion: a 2 decades systematic review (2000–2020)

• Omika Bhalla Saluja   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9831-1947 1 ,
• Priyanka Singh 1 &
• Harit Kumar 1  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  10 , Article number:  148 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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• Development studies

This study aims to reduce ambiguity in theoretical and empirical underpinning by synthesizing various knowledge concepts through a systematic review of barriers and interventions to promote the financial inclusion of women. The surrounding literature is vast, complex, and difficult to comprehend, necessitating frequent reviews. However, due to the sheer size of the literature, such reviews are generally fragmented focusing only on the factors causing the financial exclusion of women while ignoring the interventions that have been discussed all along. Filling up this gap, this study attempts to provide a bird’s-view to systematically connect all the factors as well as mediations found in past studies with the present and future. PRISMA approach has been used to explain various inclusions and exclusions extracted from Scopus & WOS databases with the backward and forward searches of important studies. Collaborative peer review selection with a qualitative synthesis of results is used to explain various barriers and interventions in financial inclusion that affected women’s empowerment in the period 2000–2020. Out of 1740 records identified, 67 studies are found eligible based on systematic screening for detailed investigation. This study has identified patriarchy structures, psychological factors, low income/wages, low financial literacy, low financial accessibility and ethnicity as six prominent barriers and government & corporate programs/policies, microfinance, formal saving accounts & services, cash & asset transfer, self-help groups, and digital inclusion as six leading interventions to summarize the literature and highlight its gaps.

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Introduction.

All over the world, women bear an inadequate load of poverty because of social and structural hurdles. A long-dated body of literature (Klasen, 1999 ; Dollar and Gatti, 1999 ; Klasen and Lamanna, 2009 ; Seguino, 2010 ) emphasizes the effect of numerous facets of gender inequality and economic growth. Females are found to be less educated, less paid, less on ownership and able to exercise much less economic control than their male counterparts. This discrimination, especially in education, hampers their financial development, leading to income inequality (Gonzales et al., 2015 ). Consequently, women suffer from lack of health, education, work opportunities and control over their own lives and selections (Kabeer, 1999 )

Nevertheless, we are observing a critical drive to achieve gender equality, with 193 United Nations member countries committing to achieving the sustainable development goal (SDG 5) of ending gender inequality issues by 2030. Realizing that women’s empowerment benefits not only women but also the sustainable development of the community (Vithanagama, 2016 ), numerous banks all over the world, such as Westpac in Australia, ICICI and SBI in India, Natwest in the UK, and UNITAR in Kenya, have developed products and services designed especially for women, keeping in mind their security, accessibility and affordability. To make the most of this, we need more extensive literature exploration to enable conceptually strong evidence-based solutions catalyzing women’s mobility from poverty and exploitation. Considering the vastness of literature, this can only be addressed by a scientific approach to review, which has been followed in the present study. However, due to the sheer size of the related literature, previous reviews (Holloway et al., 2017 , Kalaitzi et al., 2017 , Roy and Patro, 2022 ) are found to be fragmented as their results focused only on the factors causing the financial exclusion of women while ignoring the interventions that have been discussed all along.

Therefore, filling up this gap our review paper aims to scientifically identifying and amalgamating the related studies between 2000 and 2020 with the objective of (a) identifying the nature of major barriers, (b) exploring the most useful mediations/interventions and trends in research on the financial inclusion (FI) of women to enable the community to design thoughtful interventions for them.

The economic empowerment of women was explored in various dimensions at a much greater pace after 2000 (Priya et al., 2021 ). This inspired us to focus on the research work and other initiatives taken in the following 2 decades, defining our study period 2000–2020. Many influential articles have been published in journals dedicated to women and general development, such as World Development Footnote 1 , Feminist Economics Footnote 2 , Journal of Development Economics Footnote 3 and Gender & Development Footnote 4 . However, despite tremendous progress in the global state of FI, the gap in gender has not changed much since 2011, as a 6% difference still exists in access to Bank accounts among men and women in developing countries (Demirguc-Kunt et al., 2022 ), raising the need for considerate customized mediation.

Early studies on financial empowerment of women

Professor Irene Tinker’s work in women studies in the 1960s and 70s is the foundation for research on women development studies. Her work was instrumental in bringing about the first United Nations International conference on Women in 1975, which is also marked as International women’s year. She also founded the International Centre for Research on Women in 1976, which promotes empirical research to advocate evidence-based ways to empower women and promote gender equality.

Research in the 1970s was characterized by pioneer studies that highlighted the role of women in economic development (Boserup, 1970 ; Tinker, 1976 ), while the 1980s captured the role of females in family structures (Acharya and Bennett, 1981 ), the hardships faced by women in agriculture, which was identified as the single most important employment-generating sector for women (Staudt and Jaquette, 1982 ), and the advancement of land rights for women (Agarwal, 1988 ).

In the 1990s, research gathered pace with numerous studies about the persisting gender inequalities (Tinker, 1990 , 1999 ; Sen, 1990 ; Buvinić and Gupta, 1994 ; Mehra, 1997 , Mayoux, 1998 ; Pande, 1999 ) in cooperatives (Sen, 1990 ), financial services and microlevel entrepreneurship (Mehra and Gammage, 1999 ), and discriminations in agriculture and land rights of women to bring about sustainable development and suggest inclusive policies and practices (Mehra, 1995 ). Providing a much need direction and empirical advancement, Kabeer, 1999 proposed the measurement of women’s empowerment with the identification of the ‘resources’ they own, the ‘agency’ or commanding role they have and their ‘achievement’, which can be understood as the outcome in terms of well-being as the basic constructs to be observed. This is one of the most cited articles in the context of studies about the economic empowerment of women. By the end of the decade, the World Bank’s research report presented a cross-country comparison of the impact of gender inequalities on growth and development (Klasen, 1999 ), thus introducing crucial insights into the geographical diversity of the issue.

Thus, the literature around the financial empowerment of women began with recognizing the crucial role of women in the commercial progress at macro level then; it started to realize their critical role at family level and nature of their contribution at social level, which highlighted gender inequalities. Various dimensions in which such discrimination existed were identified giving scope to future researchers to explore various barriers in the way of women development and to develop suitable policy interventions.

Research methodology

Systematic reviews must follow the preset protocol, which is an advance plan of action specifying the methods to be used in the study and is generally accepted as a research design in social science studies. These rules are crucial to avoid researcher bias in data selection and analysis and increase the reliability of reviews (Xiao and Watson, 2019 ).

In this section, we have described systematic steps undertaken to extract data using specific channels, keywords, inclusion & exclusion criteria and expert selection explained through the PRISMA framework (Fig. 1 ).

Our initial result of 1734 documents (results as on 30 January 2022) was filtered by including only peer reviewed open access, full text English articles on Financial inclusion and women empowerment, resulting in 67 eligible documents. (author created).

Further, the studies thus extracted have been classified and synthesized qualitatively for deeper insights.

Channel used for literature search

Literature for this review has been found using the two sources suggested by Xio and Watson in 2019. These sources are:

Electronic database —Web of Science (WOS) and Scopus. WOS has the longest indexing coverage from 1900 to the present (Li et al., ( 2010 ) while Scopus has an extensive coverage of good quality academic work (Gavel and Iselid, 2008 ). A literature search using both databases despite the overlapping articles is still recommended to avoid missing out high-impact documents (Vieira and Gomes, 2009 ). Extractions from Scopus and WOS for this study were made on January 30, 22.

Backwards and forward search —Articles cited in important studies (highly cited) were traced to identify the inspiration and key background variables, likewise the articles that cited important studies were explored to determine the direction of the flow of research. (Webster and Watson, 2002 ; Haddaway et al., 2022 ). Also, publications by key authors (highly cited) who contributed to the pool of knowledge were identified to ensure that all their important studies were included.

Concepts from the search statement were extended by synonyms, abbreviations, verb forms and related terms to select keywords (Rowley and Slack, 2004 ), as shown in the Table 1 below:

To capture the essence of the study’s research objectives, a dive was made into the Web of Science and Scopus data extracting 751 and 983 records, respectively, based on identified keywords.

PRISMA approach

Data pulled out were filtered using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses—PRISMA (Fig. 1 ), that explains initial screening, determining parameters for inclusion and exclusion and outlining work limitations (Stovold et al., 2014 ; Selçuk, 2019 ).

Inclusion parameters

Publications from 2000–2020.

Open access articles.

Research areas: “Business management, social science, economics, econometrics, accounting and finance”

Exclusion parameters

Incomplete and non-English language publications.

Conference reviews, books, chapters, book reviews, conference papers, and surveys were excluded.

Articles in press.

Collaborative peer review-based exclusion

Expert selection and evaluation

After the electronic screening of records, a double screening was performed by all three authors, where all 89 studies were reviewed by each author individually. Later, 48 studies were screened out as they were not found to be measuring the population (vulnerable women) or outcomes (barriers and interventions) of interest, and 41 studies were finally selected. Additionally, 26 important and relevant studies, including 8 working papers, were identified through backwards and forward searches while reviewing the studies. The included working papers are listed in the Table 2 for reference. After the screening of the literature, a total of 67 articles were documented individually and classified and amalgamated in tables followed by a qualitative synthesis of these studies.

To achieve our research objectives, the selected articles were classified as barrier-related studies, experimental studies and studies evaluating interventions, with a few studies covering more than one dimension (Fig. 2 ).

Venn grouping of the selected studies on the basis of their evaluation of barriers or interventions and the nature of study being experimental or otherwise (author created).

Tabular synthesis

In Table 3 below, we have classified and connected 67 eligible articles based on their contribution to developing different perspectives about barriers and interventions in FI-based women empowerment.

Additionally, twenty-four experimental studies during 2000–2020 are presented in a tabular form (Table 4 ) for review. For the purpose of our study, only the gender-based findings are listed for each study. Owing to the high level of heterogeneity of quantitative data, we could not conduct a meta-analysis; instead, we summarized studies based on their characteristics, factors, mediations and results (Bohren et al., 2015 ).

Qualitative synthesis

The ideas forwarded through the tabular classifications in the studies of FI and WE have been knit to arrive at a thematic discussion about barriers, intervention-based studies and intervention types, which are the three main dimensions of our study.

Barriers to financial empowerment of women

Women have been suppressed and exploited physically, socially, mentally and economically for a long time. Developing countries particularly have a patriarchal set up where women are seen second to men (Nagindrappa and Radhika, 2013 ). While there is a section of society that encourages women empowerment, numerous barriers continue to restrict their advances.

Through our set of identified studies, we have presented below a discussion about various barriers that have been found through the discussion to be interlinked and often cyclical in nature. Figure 3 highlights the scope of our further discussion about the barriers to FI in women.

Six cyclic and interconnected barriers to the FI of women identified through an expert evaluation of selected studies (author created).

Patriarchy structures

Patriarchy is a socio-ideological concept in which men in the family (father, brother, husband, son, etc.) are considered to be superior to women. It is also described as a social arrangement in which men (patriarchs) dominate, oppress and exploit women (Walby, 1989 ).

Delving into the subject of patriarchy, noted author, Naila Kabeer, 2015 pointed to two types of inequities against women. First, gender mediated social class-based violence, rape and other sexual exploitation that women get subject to, and second, domestic violence due to scarcity or poverty and related helplessness of males within the household.

The abuse of women does not stem from scarcity or poverty; even affluent families exploit their daughters by denying them their land and property rights. The Indian government introduced a gender-progressive inheritance law to combat this injustice; despite the reforms, parents continued to deprive their daughters of their rights based on emotions and compensation in the form of higher education and higher dowries (Roy et al., 2015 ). This ill treatment of woman, which starts from her parental abode, continues in her husband’s house, where the ordered unequal power relations developed out of patriarchy further diminish her position. Her production, reproduction and sexuality are controlled by men. This biased treatment of women in the household adversely affects all levels of her social interactions, depriving her of access to resources and opportunities (Manta, 2019 ; Ghosh and Günther, 2018 ) and financial independence (Schaner, 2017 ).

Psychological factors

For obvious reasons, as discussed under the previous heading, many women lose self-confidence and self-esteem and perceive opportunities with fear of failure (Koellinger et al., 2008 ). An experimental study found that females in the lower income group tend to be more risk averse than their male counterparts and think about the negative consequences of not being able to pay back loans. (Manta, 2019 ) Thus, psychological factors must be carefully studied as crucial drivers of the FI of women (Kavita and Suman, 2019 ).

It was found that investment pattern, group experience and age impacted women’s perception about barriers to FI (Lombe et al., 2012 ), and attitude could be explained by personality traits, ability to cope-up, resource utilization, entrepreneurial abilities, organizational control, financial inclusion and economic betterment (Patil and Kokate, 2017 ).

Low income/wages

Although the concepts of income inequality and gender have been discussed separately in the literature, they cannot be compartmentalized, as they keep interacting by the way of inequality in outcomes and opportunities, which are a bye-product of inequalities mainly in education, financial access, social structures and individual perspectives.

With the biasness of patriarchy and her own fallen self-esteem, a woman’s low negotiation and bargaining power leads her to enter into the social contracts where she is able to earn a low level of income and wages compared to men for the same work. This discrimination is popularly referred to as the “glass ceiling” and is experienced by women at all levels of hierarchy. This reminds us of the much-discussed US presidential elections in 2016, where former U.S. Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was subject to misogynistic attacks indicating to her being too weak to serve the nation’s highest office. (Marie et al., 2017 ). Hence, women being exploited at work in terms of work treatment and low wages are no exception. At lower levels of education and power, gendered wage gaps are even more pronounced (Gonzales Martínez et al., 2020 ) and are found to further contribute to financial exclusion (Ghosh and Vinod, 2017 ) and further impede the economic growth of women.

Low financial literacy

With cyclical interconnections with all other barriers to the financial empowerment of women, financial literacy has been much discussed by researchers. Hung, A. et al, 2009 combined all previous definitions of financial literacy to express it as “knowledge of basic economic and financial concepts, as well as the ability to use that knowledge and other financial skills to manage financial resources effectively for a lifetime of financial well-being.” Successive studies have recognized financial awareness, financial knowledge, financial skills, financial attitude and financial behavior as key factors in determining financial literacy (Kumari and Azam, 2019 )

Financial literacy has been supported as one of the critical factors to bring about FI and has greater importance for increasing economic empowerment among women, especially the rural poor (Gonzales et al., 2015 ; Montanari and Bergh, 2019 ; Kumari and Azam, 2019 ; Kaur and Kapuria, 2020 ), who in the lack of it make wrong choices and become vulnerable to high financial risks (Manta, 2019 ). With a lack of financial knowledge and skills, women cannot access financial services and the benefits of the formal financial system, making them economically dependent on men and confined to the vicious circle of low investments, low income and low profits (Manta, 2019 ). Montanari and Bergh, 2019 found that the participation of women in the earnings and decision-making activities of rural cooperatives was almost nonexistent. It insisted that women’s roles in such institutions were restricted to low-cost or free physical labor, while those who benefited were literate and generally educated people.

Spatial diversity and related factors play an important role in the effective communication of financial literacy. Gendered gaps in education were found to be greatly related to the general variation in educational achievement across countries, signifying a shortage of access to education. (Gonzales et al., 2015 ).

A cross-regional comparison showed high-level gendered discrimination based on education level and economic participation in South Asia. Observations in Asian countries indicate lessening of the gendered employment gap with the rise in gendered education levels, while in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), gender gaps in education have decreased, yet women have not obtained opportunities in employment (Klassen and Lamanna, 2009 ). This result hints at the presence of interwoven barriers that are passed on locally.

Overall, a high level of financial literacy is expected to result in greater economic participation of women, where she has an opportunity to express her thoughts and receive suggestions about investment avenues and updates about new profitable products and services, encouraging her towards group effort and informed financial behavior (Ingale and Paluri, 2020 ), which in turn improves her relative wealth (Doss et al., 2020 ) and empowers her.

Low financial accessibility

Access to bank accounts, savings instruments, and other financial amenities may result in women’s better control of their earnings, personal consumption and commercial expenditure (Bernasek, 2003 ), and lack of it pushes her back to obscurity. This was exemplified in an experimental study in Kenya that found that credit constraint prevented women from starting a business and savings constraint further barred them from sustaining it (Brudevold et al., 2017 ).

While trying to develop within the male dominant society, a woman is subject to biases that pull down her self-confidence hurling her into the loop of less education, low employment and low wages, denying her the benefits of access to formal finance such as credit, deposits, insurance, payments and other risk management services (Demirguc-Kunt et al., 2022 ). Findings in an Africa-based study indicate that access to formal finance is mainly driven by individual characteristics such as education, age, income, residence area, employment status, marital status, household size and degree of trust in financial institutions (Soumare et al., 2016 ). Most of the above factors have been identified as obstacles for the FI of women, thus emphasizing women’s overall lack of opportunity to access finance.

Women’s lack of access to financial products and services may also happen because of the absence of a bank branch in rural areas that are not commercially viable for banking. Marginalized women living in underdeveloped far-flung areas with poor infrastructure and roads find it hard to regularly visit bank branches in other areas (Manta, 2019 ), so they avoid banking altogether. This problem was addressed by Mueller et al. in 2020, who worked to develop a travel time model to indicate market accessibility, which is the summary travel time to the nearest state capital city in hours. Such indicators may help in planning inclusion strategies.

Another major reason for women’s lack of access to finance is the lack of commercial interest of banks in disbursing small credit to poor women with no credit history or collateral. Such lending may lead to the building up of non-performing assets and eventually high losses for banks. Therefore, they avoid giving loans to underprivileged women depriving them of economic opportunities. Moreover, the absence of collateral with women is further enhanced by biased traditional property rights (Manta, 2019 ), which denies her resources to build upon a better future.

Looking at the brighter side, ambitious efforts are being made through pathways such as microfinance (Kemp and Berkovitch, 2020 ) and digital inclusion to pull women out of these never-ending and self-building barriers.

In recent studies, ethnicity has emerged as an important factor to be considered while promoting FI in women. Gonzales Martínez et al. ( 2020 ) conducted a controlled laboratory experiment in Bolivia to evaluate whether credit officers in microfinance institutions rejected loan applications on the basis of the interaction of gender and ethnicity of potential buyers. Although the study supported that women were benefitting from microcredit, it indicated discrimination based on ethnicity, as nonindigenous women had twice the probability of getting loan approved, whereas indigenous women had only 1.5 times the probability of getting loan approved compared to men. This idea was supported by another contemporary study (Kaur and Kapuria, 2020 ), suggesting that households headed by females belonging to socially underprivileged backgrounds had a poorer likelihood of obtaining finance from institutions. This suggests that important insights for FI for women can be derived from ethnic studies.

Experimental studies on women’s financial empowerment

As the researchers identified various variables related to the financial empowerment of women through exploratory and descriptive studies, a number of empirical and experimental studies were undertaken to understand the relationship between them. The three main types of interventions identified during our analysis were as follows:

Economic interventions —Involving cash/asset transfer, free bank accounts, free services, subsidies

Social interventions —Comprising family counseling, life skill training, vocational training, awareness programs

Bundled Economic and Social Interventions

Mostly, field experiments measuring the long-term impact of interventions on women’s financial empowerment were conducted. Overall, economic interventions were found to be highly effective in reducing the economic vulnerability of women (Stark et al., 2018 ; Brudevold et al., 2017 ). However, Ismayilova et al., 2018 and Buehren et al., 2015 ) suggested that bundling up economic, social and psychological interventions could make them more constructive.

Interventions implemented for financial empowerment of women

Intervention studies have guided various programs and policies of governments that are essential to support, promote and scale up the literacy, access and growth of financial products and services for women’s empowerment. Realizing the fact that women’s empowerment benefits not only women but also the sustainable development of the community (Vithanagama, 2016 ), numerous banks all over the world, such as Westpac in Australia, ICICI and SBI in India, Natwest in the UK, and UNITAR in Kenya, have developed products and services designed especially for women, keeping in mind their security, accessibility and affordability. Figure 4 defines the scope of our further discussion about six successful interventions in the way of FI of women.

Six most important interventions in empowering women through FI identified through an expert evaluation of selected studies (author created).

Government/corporates programs and policies

The insights developed from the conclusive studies provided governments and public and private enterprises around the world to design suitable inclusive programs, schemes and policies to address the gender gap in finance. Interventions such as government-to-people transfers and the inclusion of post office financial services were evaluated by researchers to comprehend their success or failure in bringing about fairness for women. Swamy ( 2014 ) evaluated the Indian government’s inclusive plans, policies and programs by observing changes in income level, food security, living standards, production levels and asset creation to find that the FI initiatives had a much higher impact on women than on men. These results were cited in many successive studies and laid the groundwork for more intensive inclusive efforts in India.

While acknowledging the imperative need for women’s empowerment for nation building, governments and related organizations all over the world launched ambitious programs to support women. Strategies of the Green Morocco Plan (GMP) were explored by Montanari and Bergh ( 2019 ) to conclude towards the persisting miserable circumstances of women despite planned efforts.

Similar to the actions taken by the states, many private sector companies design schemes, products and programs to promote gender equality for the benefit of their women staff. A Turkish study (Gülsoy and Ustaba, 2019 ) investigated diversity management strategies of companies and found that company leadership played an important role in bringing about equality programs in the workplace. However, they also pointed to the profiteering motive of corporations, which could be served by associating with image building activities, higher productivity and innovation capability, which could result from greater employee satisfaction.

However, some studies claim that many such initiatives had failed because they did not fully anticipate the importance and influence of social institutions such as age, gender, ethnicity, literacy, race, background and religion towards building an enabling environment for inclusion (Gonzales Martínez et al., 2020 ; Kaur and Kapuria, 2020 ).

Microcredit/microfinance

Microfinance helps to bring about the financial independence of poor or exploited women by enabling them to participate in economic activities, improving their status in households and society and reinforcing their power to make decisions (Zhang and Posso, 2017 ; Lall et al., 2017 ). A strong correlation was found between the level of outreach of microfinance institutions and women’s empowerment (Laha and Kuri, 2014 ).

Zhang and Posso ( 2017 ) used case studies to support the constructive role of microfinance to reduce gender inequality. This idea was strengthened by the empirical diary data-based study (Elu et al., 2019 ) in Mozambique, Sub-Saharan Africa, which revealed that being a woman had a positive treatment effect on procuring microcredit. A longitudinal panel study (Khandker and Samad, 2014 ) comparing the effects of microcredit programs in Bangladesh showed that a 10% increase in borrowing by women lowered extreme poverty by 5% and increased the willingness to work of women by 0.46%.

The usefulness of microfinance, microcredit, and microenterprises to promote the empowerment of women has been widely studied (Karlan et al., 2007 ; Swamy, 2014 ; Laha and Kuri, 2014 ; Zhang and Posso, 2017 ), along with the impact of bundling them up with vocational trainings, education or counseling (Kim et al., 2007 ; Buehren et al., 2015 ; Karlan et al., 2007 ). It has been found that both economic and social empowerment programs together were effective in reducing IPV (Kim et al., 2007 ). One such intervention affirms that lifeskills and livelihood training along with microfinance resulted in the likelihood of higher earnings and consumption along with a reduction in teen pregnancy and early marriage (Buehren et al., 2015 ). Likewise, it was found that health knowledge along with microcredit could help in reducing health risks (Karlan et al., 2007 ).

On the other hand, the success of microfinance policy based on outreach was challenged with an argument that institutions and their policies had engaged in a residual rather than the relational understanding of poverty (Johnson, 2013 ). Similarly, it was also questioned by Gonzales et al. in 2020 by highlighting the regressive attitude and biasness of credit officers against indigenous women.

Formal accounts/services

Formal account ownership and its use have been established as an important indicator of FI, and with the support of several research experiments, it has been adopted as an important policy intervention in many countries. Worldwide, 55% of males have a formal account at a financial institution, whereas only 47% of women own or co-own such an account with a gloomier picture in developing countries where women are 28% less likely to have an account at a formal financial institution. (Demirguc-Kunt et al., 2022 ).

Bank accounts result in savings that lead to wealth creation, which is an identified determinant of FI. A study in Kenya found that women made use of savings account far more than men. It observed that there was a 45% increase in savings on business investments among women when commitment-saving bank accounts were opened along with a high fee on withdrawal (Dupas and Robinsion, 2013 ). However, in their successive study (Dupas et al., 2014 ), where instead of a compulsive intervention, the mediation was only to facilitate account opening, it was found that men saved more than women and were more frequent in making transactions.

Hence, the mere opening of bank accounts in the names of women will not ensure their inclusion in the financial mainstream, and their usage of the same over the long run is crucial development. An experimental study found that 22% of such mediated accounts were active in the short run, and only 7% were used in the third year. Many women claim that they use the formal account of someone else in their family so they do not need an account in their own name. In many cases, husbands hold access to the ATM card of their wife, hinting towards the family structures that deprive women of a sense of ownership, making her dependent on other family members in financial matters. (Schaner, 2017 ; Demirguc-Kunt et al., 2022 ).

On the brighter side, it was found that with the sense of ownership of wealth, women tend to appreciate themselves by spending on their personal needs, elevating their sense of self-worth. There was a 40% increase in women’s personal expenditure (Dupas and Robinsion, 2013 ) and an increase in education and health after the account opening (Prina, 2015 ). Additionally, the ATM cards issued along with bank accounts were found to be quite popular among married couples, as transactions increased up to 62% in the short run and 68% in the long run. It was found to enable wives to participate in joint financial decisions along with their husbands (Schaner, 2017 ). These results reflect the positive impact of free account opening and subsidized or free financial services on inclusion but also emphasize the need to ensure that the benefits reach out to the targeted vulnerable women and have long-term effects.

Cash/asset transfer program

CTs benefit women through financial well-being, economic security and emotional well-being, leading to a reduction in intimate partner violence and significant improvement in women’s status and relationships in the family. (Ismayilova et al., 2018 ; Buller et al., 2018 )

Studies have supported adding cognitive and emotive features such as training, counseling and coaching with economic strategies in policy interventions to empower women (Ismayilova et al., 2018 ; Brudevold et al., 2017 ). When CT intervention was compared with the one coupled with life skill training, it was found that sole cash transfers were more useful in increasing the income of women in the short run only, whereas the likelihood of employment could be increased with life skill training and CT bundled together (Brudevold et al., 2017 ). An interesting study to find the real beneficiaries of CT in the long run found that benefits were largely retained by women, as they had less pressure to share their income with their relatives on the pretext that their earning options were limited (Squires, 2018 ).

The impact of productive asset transfer (livestock) in the name of women was explored in an experimental setting in Bangladesh. It revealed that although women’s asset ownership increased significantly, the real beneficiaries were men instead of women (“fly paper effect”), male sole ownership in agriculture and land increased significantly after the intervention (Roy et al., 2015 ). This reaffirms the earlier made point about the way dowry benefits are reaped by the male members.

The usefulness of CT or asset transfer cannot be denied in the short run, where lack of cash or assets averts women from starting a business, but their limitation to save prevents them from sustaining the benefits in the long run (Brudevold et al., 2017 ).

Self-help groups (SHG), philanthropy, NGOs

SHGs are informal groups of rural women formed to socially and economically support each other with a sense of belongingness and responsibility among themselves. These groups foster FI along with the social empowerment of women. Members join the SHG mainly to obtain financial support to meet basic needs, especially in the case of emergency (Nagaraj and Sundaram, 2017 ).

Most SHG members are young in age, are less educated, have less income and lack any kind of previous experience in handling money. After their SHG experience, women have been found to be managing cash (Kabeer, 2011 ; Maclean, 2012 ; Ramachandar and Pelto, 2009 ), although some studies have found that even after SHG training, there was no impact on asset formation or income of participants (Deininger and Liu, 2013 ), women remained unsure and pressurized about their financial decisions, especially in the presence of a community member (Maclean, 2012 ; Ramachandar and Pelto, 2009 ).

It was found that when the members become old in the group, they start realizing their social responsibilities, which transforms their social participation and builds up their confidence in making decisions (Mehta et al., 2011 ), enabling them to fight against exploitation at the family or societal level.

Many philanthropists and NGOs have dedicated themselves to the cause of women’s empowerment. The BOMA project in Kenya, which works to achieve the UN sustainable development goals of poverty reduction, reducing gender inequality and mitigating the effects of climate change, has been instrumental in increasing income and savings (Tiwari et al., 2019 ). In 2019, Hendriks studied the logic and strategy of the functioning of one such philanthropic Bill & Melinda Gates foundation that aims to reduce the gender gap through FI, while in 2020, Kemp and Berkovitch worked to study feminist NGOs in Israel.

Digital inclusion

Gender was identified as a key variable in consumer readiness in adopting mobile payment services and strategizing market segmentation (Humbani and Wiese, 2018 ). Digital financial services have been discussed in papers as one of the most effective FI models (Arnold and Gammage, 2019 , Natile, 2019 ), promising greater privacy, confidentiality and control of women over their finances (Duflo, 2012 ). An influential African study by Efobi et al. in 2018 found a strong positive relationship between progressions in information technology through mobile & internet penetration and the participation of women in the economy.

With the advent of mobile banking, many women who cannot reach out to financial institutions have been linked to financial services and are more likely to save than men, even with limited amounts (Ouma et al., 2017 ), gaining greater flexibility to spend on household expenditures and child welfare measures (Duflo, 2012 ). In 2016, Suri and Jack found that Kenyan mobile money system M-PESA was able to lift 194,000 households, which was 2% of the total households, out of poverty, with a significant positive impact in female households driven by higher savings and better employment of women. Acknowledging its phenomenal reach, the drawbacks and efficiencies of mobile banking were discussed further to promote FI (Humbani and Wiese, 2018 ; Arnold and Gammage, 2019 ). Prospects of digitizing G2P payments were evaluated (Klapper and Singer, 2017 ) to find that with the backing of government, there could be a dramatic reduction in costs, higher efficiencies, transparency and greater acceptance of technology.

Deliberating imperfections, on the one hand, complex financial products and services are being launched every other day; on the other hand, almost 80% of women in low-income economies still earn their wages in cash (Klapper and Dutt, 2015 ). Inherent inequalities in financial access (Klapper and Dutt, 2015 ), innumeracy, illiteracy and unfamiliarity with technology (Tiwari et al., 2019 ) are barriers to women’s digital FI. Reiterating the above idea, the exploration of inclusionary arrangements found the exploitation of the M-PESA program to identify market opportunities causing its failure to adopt the redistributive measures necessary for the benefit of society (Natile, 2019 ). This suggests that there is a need for a very well-planned, systematic digital intervention with higher transparency, sensitivity and awareness.

Our systematic study seeks to explore its research objectives through three dimensions viz. barriers, intervention types and intervention/experimental studies (Fig. 2 ). The results obtained with regards to each dimension have been further discussed to present the contribution of our work.

Out of 67 related studies 24 studies provided us insights about the barriers in the way to financial Inclusion of women. A tabular synthesis of these studies resulted in the identification of six barriers, which were further qualitatively synthesized to find that they were interlinked and often cyclical in nature. We found that the study conducted for understanding one barrier led the way to explore other barrier. The long-term ill treatment of women due to patriarchy structures induce low self-esteem and other psychological barriers, which in turn reduce their negotiation power and more often than not they have to settle for low income and wages coupled with low literacy levels than their male counterparts. Low finances, economic power and low literacy directly affect their decision-making, leadership and opportunities. With fewer opportunities to grow, females get lesser access to finance and the women who have been underprivileged on account of their ethnicity face greater challenges in accessing finance their development. Lack of financial strength and literacy keeps pushing women into the patriarchy structures and hence the viscous cycle of disempowering women continues.

The results obtained from the tabular synthesis of 34 intervention studies, identified Government/Corporates programs and policies, Microcredit/Microfinance, Formal accounts/services, Cash/asset transfer program, Self-Help Groups (SHG), Philanthropy, NGOs and Digital Inclusion as the main interventions. These interventions have been individually documented to get insights about the related studies. The qualitative results suggest that there is a significant role of public and social institutions, related experiences, economic nature of intervention and technical advancement in financial services in fostering financial empowerment of women.

Also, we have presented a tabular synthesis of 24 intervention or experimental studies, which give an insight about the kind of intervention, the key findings and the research methodology that has been adopted in previous studies (Table 4 ). The findings from intervention studies suggest that economic interventions alone or bundled with social interventions were useful in financially empowering women.

Previous studies such as Holloway et al. ( 2017 ) and Kalaitzi et al. ( 2017 ) have used thematic mapping and traditional review methods to approach similar problem. Holloway et al. ( 2017 ) studied the impact of various saving, credit, payments and insurance products on women empowerment and found that there are numerous demand and supply-side barriers, some of which could be overcome by product design features. The study suggested that a greater degree of control and privacy surrounding women’s income and expenditure decision could boost their inclusion in the financial system. Our study results supports this finding especially while planning financial inclusion of women through digital ways where transparency, sensitivity and awareness must be considered as important variables.

Kalaitzi et al. ( 2017 ) identified 26 barriers to women leadership in Healthcare, Academia and Business, some of which were common while some were found to be starkly different across sectors. A systematic review by Roy and Patro ( 2022) synthesized evidence from 73 studies to find out that demand side factors were the main cause of gender-based exclusion. Unlike these studies, we have not only identified the different types of barriers, but also have attempted to understand the nature of these barriers, which has led to physical, social, mental, economic exploitation and overall suppression of women since a very long time. The focus of previous studies was only on the factors and the importance of the FI of women, giving us the opportunity to discuss the subject at a comprehensive level by including related interventions. Also, our findings about the experimental studies have not been presented in former studies making our contribution significant in women studies.

Thus, filling up the gaps, we have discussed the nature of six main barriers, summarized 24 key experimental studies and have clearly identified six major interventions that have been applied in the first 2 decades of the twenty-first century to provide a bird’s-view to systematically connect the factors as well as mediations found in past studies with the present and future.

However, as mentioned earlier in the result section of this paper, the presence of heterogeneity of the quantitative studies prevented us from conducting a meta-analysis, which we have tried to compensate with a rigorous synthesis of results from various studies. Sincere efforts have been made to include all the major contributors to the research topic, but due to the vastness of the subject and the limitation of our research design, some insightful studies may have been omitted from the discussion. Nevertheless, we believe that the current work covers inputs from many imminent studies, such as Kabeer ( 2011 ), Kabeer and Sweetman ( 2015 ), Beck et al. ( 2007 ), Brudevold et al. ( 2017 ), Swamy ( 2014 ), Efobi et al. ( 2018 ), Klapper and Dutt, ( 2015 ), and Dupas and Robinsion ( 2013 ) is able to provide the readers with a comprehensive, yet quick overview of the literature and its gaps while contributing to the development of useful interventions to achieve the sustainability goal of gender equality by 2030.

Practical implications

Considering the vastness of the subject and the need for urgent attention as the fifth sustainability goal, a quick understanding to formulate useful policies, programs and other interventions is much needed. Therefore, the findings of our study can provide useful insights to policy makers.

The barriers to financial Inclusion of women have been found to be inter-related and cyclical. This implies that a constant endeavor to eradicate even one such hurdle will have a multifold effect and will be useful in removing others. On the flip side, if attention is not paid to remove even one of these hurdles, they will keep occurring and obstructing the way of women’s development. Therefore, long-term policy interventions with continuous monitoring of efforts are required to bring about inclusive financial growth of women.

We have found through our exploration of intervention studies (Table 3 ) that though Government-to-people transfers (G2P), such as pensions, conditional cash transfers, financial literacy programs, microfinance, other socioeconomic transfers and products & services of public facility institutions such as post-offices, have resulted in the growth of savings and thereby higher entrepreneurship among women, but the related experiences of poor women determine their likelihood of connecting with the system in the long run. Hence, merely designing the intervention is not enough, and careful monitoring of such interventions must be done to achieve the objectives.

We have also found that SHGs, NGOs and other local communities enable women to become a part of the value chain and the familiarity and trust of vulnerable women in such organizations gives them a comparative advantage over other formal institutions. Therefore, as these formal or informal setups help women to get past the psychological hurdles, they must be included in all programs devised for including women in the financial system.

Moreover, we have found digital inclusion to be the most promising intervention with the widest range and prospects to connect with left-behind poor women. This calls for a sensitive customized approach keeping in mind the convenience of vulnerable and less educated women in adapting to the digital ways.

Furthermore, through our exploration of experimental studies (Table 4 ) we have found that economic interventions are more useful than social interventions in promoting entrepreneurship, savings, consumption and general betterment of the lifestyle of women. However, the most effective programs are those in which both economic and social components are incorporated. This insight can be utilized towards designing valuable mediations to support entrepreneurship among women, keeping in view that such intervention should not just be on papers, but must actually reach to the beneficiary and be utilized towards the identified cause only.

Future scope for research

The 67 studies discussed in this work have exposed many gaps in the related literature. As we have found that all the barriers are inter-related and cyclical, there is a need to break the cycle. Our findings can help future researchers to develop deeper insights about each of the highlighted barrier. A few future areas for research have been identified as:

Meaningful and important insights can be derived from ethnic studies to measure the impact of cultural institutions such as women’s dress codes and their expected public behavior on the level of their economic participation.

Exploration of behavioral irrationality of rural women towards financial products and services.

Biasness at the workplace in terms of income, authority and leadership should be explored further to devise suitable interventions.

The perception, attitude, and behavior of women towards finance have been evaluated in many studies, but not much has been discussed to understand the supply-side psychological hurdles at the individual level in disbursal of finance.

Likewise, our results suggest and discuss the evaluation of most effective interventions, which can help researchers to understand the way these mediations have developed so far and the way in which they can be improvised. Some future areas, which may be explored in theory may be:

The usefulness of online education to promote financial literacy and awareness in the remote corners of countries and across countries.

The lack of discussion about insurance products to mitigate risk and encourage investments among women can be addressed.

There is a need to discuss security, transparency and awareness in digital financial services along with thoughtfully designing simpler digital interfaces, tools and devices customized for women.

Moreover, as the problem of the FI of women has evidently been discussed primarily in developing nations, there is a need for exploration studies about poor or indigenous women in developed countries.

Thus, offering a deeper insight to the subject of Women empowerment through Financial Inclusion, we have identified six prominent barriers to FI of women: patriarchy structures, psychological factors, low income/wages, low financial literacy, low financial accessibility and ethnicity and have uniquely found that these barriers are interconnected with cyclical impact, resulting in redistribution effects that further widen the gaps between the privileged and the underprivileged, which must be considered while designing interventions in future.

Similarly, we have recognized six main interventions that have been introduced thus far: government and corporate programs/policies, microfinance, formal saving accounts/services, cash or asset transfer, self-help groups and digital inclusion and have presented various methods and findings of related experimental researches to provide direction for future inquiry. The consequences, appreciation and criticism of various interventions have been documented in the results and discussion to provide useful vision for future policy or theoretic implementation. Overall, this study has exclusively presented a summary of the barriers and interventions, which have been inquired into during 2000–2020 thereby contributing to achieving sustainable development goal (SDG 5) of ending gender inequality issues by 2030.

Data availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article and its supplementary information file.

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Saluja, O.B., Singh, P. & Kumar, H. Barriers and interventions on the way to empower women through financial inclusion: a 2 decades systematic review (2000–2020). Humanit Soc Sci Commun 10 , 148 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-01640-y

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Technology as the key to women’s empowerment: a scoping review

• April Mackey   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7069-5843 1 &
• Pammla Petrucka 1  

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Information and communications technologies (ICTs) have empowered people to communicate and network at a global scale. However, there is lack of in-depth understanding of the use of ICTs for women's empowerment. This study examines how the concept empowerment is defined, utilized and measured in research studies, the existing evidence on the use of ICTs for women’s empowerment and the gaps in knowledge at the global level.

The authors’ conducted a scoping review using the Arksey and O’Malley methodology. The search identified papers from ten databases, including Scopus, Embase, ABI Inform, Soc Index, Sociological Abstracts, Gender Studies, Springer Link, PsychInfo, Science Direct, and Academic Search Complete over the period of 2012–2018. Search criteria included articles that focused on women’s empowerment and utilized technologies as interventions. Out of a total of 4481 articles that were initially identified, 51 were included.

Technology played a variety of roles in supporting the development of women’s capacities and resources. Results revealed the use of ICT interventions in the overarching areas of outreach (e.g., health promotion), education (e.g., health literacy opportunities), lifestyle (e.g., peer coaching and planning), prevention (e.g., screening opportunities), health challenges (e.g., intimate partner violence apps), and perceptions of barriers (i.e., uptake, utilization and ubiquity to ICTs for women). Despite the positive use of technology to support women in their daily lives, there was a lack of consensus regarding the definition and use of the term empowerment. The concept of empowerment was also inconsistently and poorly measured in individual studies making it difficult to determine if it was achieved.

This scoping review provides a comprehensive review of current and emerging efforts to use ICTs to empower women. The findings suggest a need for collaborative efforts between researchers, program implementers and policy makers as well as the various communities of women to address the persistent gender disparities with respect to ICTs.

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The term women’s empowerment emerged in the 1970s in response to the need for social justice and gender equality [ 1 , 2 ]. As the term evolved in the 1990s, it was increasingly applied to women who were oppressed and lacking the freedom of choice and action to shape their lives, as well as to discuss women’s participation across multiple sectors in society. More recently it has been used as an outcome and a goal to be achieved is to balance the scales of gender equality and equity. For this research, the definition used regarding women’s empowerment is a process by which women who have experienced oppression acquire the ability to make autonomous and strategic life choices based on their personal priorities. Empowerment is achieved when a woman has the resources, agency, and capabilities to execute decisions on matters of importance [ 3 , 4 ].

Globally women are more likely to experience less favourable social determinants of health (such as over-representation of women in low-paying, insecure employment; lower education and literacy levels amongst rural and immigrant women) than their male counterparts. Women carry the bulk of responsibility for raising children and meeting household obligations, which, globally, contribute to this continued disadvantage [ 5 , 6 , 7 ]. Due to a lack of affordable and quality daycare, women are over-represented in part-time work force, and often remain within low-income bracket [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ]. Gender, as a social determinant of health, is influenced by the “gendered” norms of the roles, personality traits, attitudes, relative power, and influence that society ascribes to it [ 9 , 10 ]. The transition from the Millennium Development Goals to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 saw the emergence of Target 5 which aims to “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls” (p. 20) [ 11 ]. A major SDG indicator supporting attainment of women’s empowerment is “enhancing the use of enabling technology by increasing the proportion of women and girls who have access” (p. 20) [ 11 ].

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have catalyzed communication and networking between and among people on a global scale. However, as ICTs have become ubiquitous and grown in both type and access, a digital divide has emerged. This divide parallels gaps in social contexts, such as income and education, as those who use and benefit from access to technologies often have other resources more readily available [ 12 ]. This divide widens the inequity and inequality gaps based on gender, age, disability, or socioeconomic status [ 13 , 14 ].

Women’s empowerment and ICTs have been the subject of global goals, discussions, and debates for many decades [ 15 , 16 ]. Global discussions, such as the 1995 World Conference on Women: Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, deliberated and advocated for the inclusion of women in the information society in order to fully achieve women’s empowerment in connection with ICT. In 2013, 200 million more men had access to the internet than women [ 17 ]. Women use ICTs much less frequently and intensely than men [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ] In 2016, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) stated that the percentage of women gaining access to ICT is actually decreasing—with women utilizing ICTs 11% less than men in 2013 and 12% less than men in 2016 [ 19 ]. The most recent 2018 report indicated that the overall proportion of internet usage for women was 12% lower than men [ 19 ].

The extant evidence lacks sufficient depth and detail as to exactly how ICTs are being used by women and why they use it less frequently. An important aspect of empowerment in the context of ICTs is gaining a clearer picture as to the type of technologies and technological interventions being used by women. Many authors agree that improved access to ICTs can assist in providing women with employment resources and opportunities that could narrow the gender wage gap, assist in making education and health information more accessible, contribute to the end of violence against women, and lead to women’s empowerment and leadership [ 15 , 22 , 23 , 24 ].

The objectives of this research were to: determine how the concept of empowerment is defined, utilized, and measured in research studies; explore existing evidence regarding the use of ICTs as interventions towards achieving women’s empowerment; and explore the gaps in knowledge and research on this topic from an individual, community, and global perspective.

This research involved a scoping review, which is methodologically similar to a systematic review, to provide a rigourous synthesis of existing evidence [ 25 , 26 ] For the purpose of this study, the scoping review framework used was described by Arksey and O’Malley [ 27 ] as a five-step process with an optional sixth step. These steps include: (1) identifying the research question, as the starting point to guide the search strategy; (2) identifying relevant studies, which involved the development of a comprehensive search strategy to ensure accurate and complete results; (3) selecting studies, which involved developing a-priori inclusion and exclusion criteria that were revised throughout the review process, as familiarity with the evidence increased; (4) charting the data, which involved charting and sorting key material from the results into themes and trends; (5) collating, summarizing, and reporting the results, which involved presenting the results as a narrative; and (6) consulting with relevant stakeholders, which is contingent upon time and resource considerations. For the purposes of this research, the sixth step was not performed.

Review protocol, team, and management

To ensure transparency, rigour, reproducibility, and consistency, protocols were developed prior to the start of the research, for the inclusion criteria, search strategy, and data characterization. This helped to ensure an unbiased approach to the search protocol and to enhance rigour [ 27 ]. These are available upon request. The scoping review was conducted by a team of individuals with multi-disciplinary capabilities in nursing, knowledge synthesis methodologies, and ICTs. The primary reviewers included the lead and co-authors, as well as one research assistant. In addition, a University librarian was consulted throughout the search term selection process to ensure completeness and accuracy of search terms as well as a comprehensive and complete search strategy.

Any and all potentially relevant citations identified throughout all stages were imported into EndNote™, a reference management software, where duplicates were removed by the program and then double checked, and manually removed by the lead author; the list of citations was then imported into a web-based electronic systematic review management platform, DistillerSR™. The screening for article relevance, up to the data extraction stages, were conducted using this software. Two reviewers (i.e., lead author and research assistant) were involved throughout the selection and analysis process to ensure consistency, adherence to the inclusion/exclusion criteria, relevance to the research question, as well as the categorization of data into themes and patterns. As part of this process, all articles were screened by the lead author and research assistant. Any discrepancies were brought forward to the co-author who made an independent decision whether to include or exclude the article.

Review intent and scope

This was part of a broader study aimed at addressing the following question: What is the global impact of ICTs on women’s empowerment? The current review aimed to examine the concept of empowerment, while exploring the evidence on ICTs as interventions for achieving women’s empowerment at the individual, community, and global levels.

Search strategy

The authors ensured identification of relevant and suitable publications by creating a search strategy protocol prior to retrieving evidence from a variety of sources. As per Arksey and O'Malley [ 27 ], the following avenues were reviewed as part of the search strategy: searching relevant electronic databases, reviewing reference lists of pertinent articles to identify additional sources, and manually searching key journals.

To ensure the search was comprehensive, the following databases, available through the University of Saskatchewan library, were searched on November 30, 2016 and updated on January 1, 2018: Scopus, Embase, ABI Inform, Soc Index, Sociological Abstracts, Gender Studies, Springer Link, PsychInfo, Science Direct, and Academic Search Complete. The COCHRANE Library was also searched for any relevant trials in the trial registry. Limits placed on the search included: English only, no book reviews, publications dated 2012–2017, and the protocol was pretested in Scopus and Soc Index using select key words including “women” and “empowerment” and “technology.” An illustration of the search term strategy is presented in Table 1 .

Search terms were drawn from the research question, as well as from lengthy discussions with the university librarian and expanded upon based on a cursory search of two databases. To determine the range and breadth of key terms, an initial limited search of two databases was conducted yielding several papers. These databases were determined in consultation with the university librarian and included Scopus and Gender Studies. These papers were then analyzed for similar keywords, definitions, analogies, and index terms that were relevant synonyms to the initial search words [ 28 , 29 ]. These additional terms were added to a master list that informed the final search strategy. Specifically, for the term empowerment, keywords were chosen that could provide results that included a lack of empowerment as well, thus the inclusion of “barrier” and “disempower”. The other search terms came directly from key articles and databases and were demonstrated to be the most common variations on the term “empower”. An additional term that was used interchangeably with “empower” was “agency”, however, as this term is used more frequently in conjunction with organizations and not empowerment, it was removed from the search term list.

The ability of the electronic database search to identify all relevant primary research was verified by hand searching the reference lists of eight key peer reviewed articles and nine key electronic journals that were flagged through the initial test search as well as the main search. The journals were chosen based on their relevance to the research question as well as their scholarly nature. The initial three identified journals were: Community Informatics , Gender and Development, and Journal of Women in Culture and Society. Subsequent journals were identified and selected for a hand-search once the initial search was completed. These were : Gender, Technology & Development , Computers in Human Behaviour , American Journal of Health Behaviour , American Journal of Public Health , and Women’s Health Issues . These journals were then reviewed for additional articles potentially not identified through the database search; this included entering the general search into journal databases.

Additional grey literature was identified by hand-searching the websites of the Association for Computing Machinery Digital Library Journals and Conference Proceedings, the UN Women, Status of Women Canada, the United Nations Development Program, the International Center for the Research of Women, the Girls Action Foundation, the Information and Communications Technology Council, the ITU, and the International Development Research Center for primary research reports, guidelines, situation reports, and referenced publications that were not already included.

Study selection: relevance screening and inclusion criteria

The focus of the study selection was locating published and unpublished academic articles, which may have any type of study design, including qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods. The initial pool of results included a total of 4481 citations. An initial set of inclusion and exclusion criteria were developed a-priori to screen abstracts and titles of citations which were refined during each review of the pool of articles. Research articles were initially considered relevant if they included women’s empowerment and/or information and communication technology concepts in the title or abstract of the publication. Synonyms for these concepts were created in consultation with the librarian to ensure a robust search strategy for maximum location and inclusion of studies. Given the evolving nature of ICTs and their role in interventions, the authors wanted the articles to reflect a recent knowledge base, therefore the timeframe of 2012–2016 was chosen, which was later expanded to December 31, 2017 as the review progressed. The results were also filtered to include English only content.

First screen: inclusion criteria

The inclusion criteria created for the first level of study selection were driven by the review topics, specifically, women, empowerment, and ICTs. According to the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) (2015), the inclusion criteria should be based on three themes, also known by the acronym of PCC: (a) participant description, (b) concept, which is likened to the phenomena of interest, and (c) context. The inclusion criteria used in the first level of selection were country of publication, date of publication (2012–2017), and the use of both of the following concepts in the title or abstract of the publication: women’s empowerment and/or information and communication technology. At this stage, the lead author looked for the presence of the key words in the title and/or abstract. The use of these keywords as inclusion criteria was designed to be intentionally broad to provide a sense of what publications linked the two concepts (i.e., women's empowerment and ICTs).

First screen: study selection

On first review, the initial pool of articles was subjected to a staged process to ensure studies were selected that were relevant to the research question and met the inclusion criteria. Articles were first excluded based on duplication within the initial search results. This exclusion was conducted using the search tools feature within the electronic database, but also within the reference management program Endnote™ and then manually by the lead author. The inclusion criteria were applied to the title and abstract of the publication. Any title or abstract that did not meet the inclusion criteria was removed from further review and consideration. All articles excluded by the criteria were sent to the research assistant who confirmed the exclusion. Any disagreements or contradictions between the primary author and the research assistant were thoroughly discussed, with both parties having to agree to the inclusion before the publication could be added back into the pool of articles to move on to the next stage. Additionally, if an article could not be excluded based solely on the title or the abstract, the full article was reviewed for relevance to the research question and inclusion criteria. These latter two points did not prove to be an issue as there were no disagreements.

Second screen

The remaining pool of articles was then reviewed a second time by applying a second level of inclusion criteria to the title as well as the abstract. It is common and encouraged as part of the scoping review process to generate increased cumulative familiarity with how concepts are presented within the evidence. This, in turn, informed the decisions that were made regarding the inclusion or exclusion criteria in the subsequent stage. Much of the articles after the first level of elimination included technology as a passive aspect of the study and not one that women actively participated in. It was important for the authors that the technological aspect of each study be an intervention that women could engage in towards building self-efficacy and capacity. This informs current gaps within the evidence that speak to how women are using technologies to support their empowerment. As such, this set of inclusion criteria focused on technology as an intervention and women as active participants in the study instead of just the word “women” found throughout the first set of criteria.

Final screen

For the final review of the full text articles, based on the content and findings in the scoping review process, an additional criterion was included. The authors wanted to explore how the social determinants of health informed and supported the concepts of women, empowerment, and ICTs. At this stage, it was noted which social determinants of health, if any, were present in each article. The list of social determinants based on the Government of Canada (2019) criterion was utilized as a reference for this portion of the process, such as employment and working conditions; income and social status; social supports and coping skills. The remaining 59 articles all had social determinants of health. A subsequent review resulted in 14 of the 59 articles being eliminated from consideration as they did not meet the inclusion/exclusion criteria. Rather than focus on a range of these determinants, the authors decided to include all 45 articles and to then review the implications of this finding in the analysis (Fig.  1 ).

PRISMA Flow for Screening Process

Re-run searches

Due to the extended time to conduct the review, the authors included re-run searches for each database up to January 1, 2018. A total of 573 articles were found in all 10 of the main electronic databases. Using the inclusion and exclusion criteria previously described all but six articles were eliminated through the first and second stages in the review process. The final total number of articles included in the analysis was 51.

Study characteristics, extraction, and charting

The final step in the Arksey and O’Malley’s [ 27 ] scoping review framework was to collate and summarize the results for presentation and discussion. Each selected article was summarized in a customized data characterization utility form to guide data extraction. The goal of this step was to determine and chart factors to be extracted from each article to help answer the research question [ 26 , 27 , 30 ]. The charting of data was an iterative and exploratory process in which the data charts were continuously updated to ensure completeness and accuracy [ 26 , 30 ]. Data extracted from the charts included year of publication, country of study, implications for policy and practice, types of ICT interventions, demographics, empowerment (definition, as a design consideration, and measures), and social determinants of health (presence and description within in the study). All data were then analyzed using thematic analysis and the main ideas refined over several iterations. The data were then mapped using tabular and visual presentations of the main conceptual categories followed by a narrative summary describing how the results related to the research question and objectives.

Demographics and study characteristics

The geographic range of the included evidence was global; however, 41.1% (21/51) described research conducted in the USA. Seven studies were conducted in India, three in Australia, three in Sweden, and two in Canada. One study was conducted in each of the following countries: Finland, Ghana, Italy, Japan, Nepal, Netherlands, Nigeria, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda, and United Kingdom.

Collation and comparison of demographics was difficult due to a lack of consistency in reporting. However, all articles described the demographics of women who were the primary focus of the study. Seventy eight percent of the articles (40/51) reported on some or all of the descriptive study characteristics. The age of participants was frequently reported although there were inconsistent age groupings across the studies. Some articles only reported the mean age of participants, while others provided only an age range. The lowest mean age reported was 24 years while the highest was 59.6 years; the categories ranged from less than 16 years to 64 years and older. It is difficult to compare these age ranges as the categories varied in the included articles, and it was unclear as to whether age was simply a descriptive statistic designed to describe the sample or whether it was reflected upon consistently in terms of the overall implications to the study.

Missing from the studies were the perspectives and participation of women who could not access, afford, and/or purchase an ICT device as well as effectively and fully utilize it to support their empowerment. Exclusion criteria used in the individual 51 studies illustrate that women not already owning a mobile device, computer, or tablet were eliminated from participating in the research.

Empowerment definition

In the included studies, the concept of empowerment was used incongruously with terms like self-concept, self-esteem, and self-worth, sometimes by the same author in the same study, which further limited our ability to achieve a uniform definition for the purposes of this research. Less than one quarter (12/51) of the studies used the term “empower(ment)” in their definition of the concept of interest. These studies defined empowerment as a process but with different foci: as individuals having choice or control over their decisions [ 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 ], as being multi-dimensional and influencing a variety of areas [ 34 , 37 , 39 , 40 ] or with a focus on building individuals’ capacities, including internal and external resources [ 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 ].

The remaining studies described empowerment in a more indirect way, never including the term “empower” or “disempower.” Instead, the term empowerment was described in synonymous terms, for instance, half (28/51) described the concept of empowerment as the process of enabling a sense of self-efficacy or self-worth in the ability to overcome barriers to resources, as well as the barriers to decision-making control [ 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 ]. One fifth (11/51) described empowerment as the process enabling a sense of self-efficacy or self-worth in the ability to overcome barriers to control over resources [ 71 , 72 , 73 , 74 , 75 , 76 , 77 , 78 , 79 , 80 , 81 ].

Measures of empowerment

All studies considered the concept of empowerment in their design; 80% (41/51) of the articles considered empowerment as a primary outcome of the study. No measures of empowerment were specifically cited in any of the articles, beyond the measures of the behaviour being studied. Several studies included various measures of self-efficacy (i.e., childbirth [ 74 ], physical activity [ 56 , 67 , 71 , 74 , 80 , 81 ], intimate partner violence [ 72 ], caregiving [ 75 ], barrier [ 55 , 56 ], health [ 78 ], and chronic disease management [ 77 ]). The authors of the articles did not compare the different types of self-efficacy scales for validity of empowerment. The diversity of the scales illustrates a focus on improving efficacy of individual behaviors rather than the holistic empowerment of women.

ICT interventions to support women’s capacity and tools

The articles described a range of supportive ICT interventions, though with inconsistent and overlapping classification. The specific types of interventions covered in the 51 articles included web-based devices (17), the internet (19), particular websites (3), blogs (1), text messaging (4), telemedicine (1), video (1), apps (5), social media (2), computers (6), email (1) and Fitbit™ (1). Our categorization of ICTs focused on how the specific interventions were utilized in the day to day lives of women and were obtained from a thematic analysis of the types of ICTs used by women in the studies. The themes included (1) Outreach; (2) Education; (3) Lifestyle (4) Health Challenges; (5) Prevention; and (6) Perception of Barriers.

Ten of the 51 articles reviewed described supportive ICT interventions as a means of outreach or connecting with clients in the community. Common themes in this section included supporting women where they are at in the community, in terms of their social position, to enhance positive health behaviours with technological assistance, as well as overall enhanced accessibility to ICTs. This was accomplished through Cognitive Behavioural Therapy using computers [ 46 ], and web-based decision aid for understanding fetal anomalies [ 47 ]. Educational text messages were sent to encourage breastfeeding [ 79 ], and general health promotion interventions were delivered as well [ 43 , 44 , 56 , 65 , 73 , 75 , 80 ].

Six articles described supportive ICT interventions that delivered various health information, through smartphones or other web-based devices. These included Facebook™ virtual learning systems [ 34 ], psychoeducation for breast cancer patients [ 35 ], as well as interactive voice response as a tool for improving access to healthcare in remote areas [ 59 ]. Other interventions included English language programs [ 70 ], antenatal perineal massage support groups [ 76 ], as well as support for enhancing doctor-patient relationships. [ 64 ].

Twelve articles described supportive ICT interventions that focused on behavioural outcomes related to general lifestyle areas, using web-based devices. Commonly, the interventions provided some form of external support for women to improve their overall way of being healthy. These included improving nutrition knowledge and behaviours [ 67 , 69 ], promoting healthy food planning, shopping, and eating behaviours [ 54 ], interventions for weight loss behaviours, [ 45 ] and engagement with physical activity coaching [ 55 , 71 , 74 ]. Many of the interventions focused on social networks [ 9 , 48 ], for example, peer support for building social capital [ 52 ], and promoting social behaviours through an iPad book club [ 81 ].

Health challenges

Eleven articles described ICT interventions that focused on using web-based devices to address specific health challenges. The health challenges largely focusing on ways to enhance maintenance of women’s health, for example, self-paced education programs for those who experience intimate partner, as well as dating violence [ 33 , 41 , 72 ], and educational training to enhance understanding and management of chronic illness [ 77 ]. The interventions addressing health challenges were concentrated on those that affect women only, for example educational training for patients with breast cancer [ 38 , 61 ], health modules for those with breast cancer [ 78 ] and stress incontinence [ 63 ] and advanced care planning for women with ovarian cancer [ 49 ].

A few articles (3/51) described ICT interventions that focused on preventing specific health challenges using web-based devices. One intervention focused on the prevention of sexual and reproductive illness using education information [ 57 ]. Another encouraged vaccination behaviors and immunization with educational information [ 58 ] as well as the prevention of pre-eclampsia in rural developing countries using diagnostic tools [ 51 ]. One study focused on utilizing mobile phones to manage money transfers to support transport of women with fistula to urban hospitals [ 60 ] and another examined electronic health records to improve breast cancer screening [ 53 ].

Perceptions of barriers

Nine articles described ICT interventions that focused on the perception of barriers to ICTs that assist women in advancing their understanding and use of ICTs. These studies focused on the perceived barriers and understanding of the role of mobile phones, [ 42 , 66 ] the awareness of gender-based barriers in telemedicine [ 68 ], the development of women through mobile phones [ 32 , 40 ], as well as the connection with women in the community apps [ 50 ].

Concept of empowerment

Empowerment is a multi-dimensional and contextual concept that is internal by nature, varies in meaning, and reflects how women self-ascribe it to themselves. From the outset of the review, search terms had to include words beyond simply “empower[ment]” as much of the initial searching revealed synonyms including self-efficacy, self-worth, self-concept, and/or capacity. This inconsistency in the use of the term empowerment yields a lack of consensus on how empowerment is understood which impacts how research studies and interventions are structured and delivered to ensure maximum effectiveness and generalizability. While none of the studies included in the review indicated the broader negative outcomes related to the use of ICT, the literature supports a flip side to using technology to empower women. For example, technological advances are disproportionately accompanied by female-directed cyber abuse [ 82 , 83 ].

Evidence that women of poor socio-economic status are being left out of research studies and programs that aim to support women’s empowerment, highlights that targeted access and funding for at risk populations (such as sub-populations of women) are essential considerations in policy and program development across individual, community, and global contexts. This also reflects biases in terms of the population sub-groups in research studies that aim to advance empowerment. Opportunities exist for further evaluation of how empowerment is being measured and used in conjunction with ICTs, as well as which frameworks are being used to guide research in this area. The lack of specific measures of empowerment reflects a barrier, not only regarding how strategies for empowerment are understood and implemented, but how researchers know whether empowerment has been achieved. The finding underscores a need for a standardized tool for measuring the level of women’s empowerment.

ICTs to improve empowerment

Empowerment through ICTs has the potential to cross multiple sectors, both private and public. The complexity of empowerment and ICTs, as they relate to the root issues of inequities, suggests the need for collaborative, multi-sectoral involvement. These partnerships consider the contextual factors that act as facilitators and barriers for women in all types of communities. Interagency partnerships are uniquely suited to develop interventions aimed at enabling women to make better use of ICTs. These interventions should include information on access to education, facilities for education regarding entrepreneurship, employment opportunities, and health and other government health resources. Governments partnering with private telecommunication agencies through subsidization could provide discounted or refurbished devices for women who are deemed disadvantaged. Funding may also benefit those who experience difficulty in obtaining mobile devices as well as in accessing interventions aimed at enhancing the use of ICT. For example, funding is needed to support the cost of accessing services, low-cost devices, or the provision of Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards. Alternatively, governments should support and encourage private mobile operators through tax exemptions and other benefits to facilitate better mobile services and infrastructure in rural, remote, and urban areas. Providing accessible computer sites within communities or in schools is another way to bridge the gap in access to and use of ICT. These strategies not only help in improving the overall status of girls and women but also influence overall empowerment and development of the community.

Though ICT is not the only factor that can support women’s empowerment through capacity building, women who do not have access to or who cannot afford ICTs, are potentially disempowered due to a lack of voice and participation within the information sphere. Exclusion of such women from research limits the measurement of the true impact of ICTs on empowerment and generalizability of findings. Continued research regarding empowerment involving more advantaged sub-groups of women does not address the inherent issues of oppression of women within society and further disempowers those under-represented groups. Local policies (such as affordable internet as a basic need; basic digital literacy education embedded in local curricula) have the greatest potential of improving the uptake of ICTs, as this process occurs initially at the individual level.

Individual, community, and global knowledge

Local and national governments need to invest in information gathering tools that inquire how and why women are using technology to support their lives and families. Equally important is the inquiry of women’s perceptions regarding how they prefer to use ICTs to improve their lives or the barriers they experience in the process. A global survey undertaken by the UN Statistics Division in 2011 indicated that only 30 percent of countries regularly produce sex-disaggregated statistics (such as male:female access to ICT; digital literacy by gender) and existing data collection approaches do not incorporate qualitative components that highlight the voices of women [ 84 ].

Future data should be translated into gender sensitive policies that support equal access and use of ICTs. The development and implementation of such policies should involve representation of women from all socio-economic backgrounds and ages to ensure maximum impact. Examples include policies that allow women to effectively access and participate in ICTs within society, the delivery of ICTs at a reasonable cost for all, as well as policies that regulate the cost and provision of services linked to ICTs such as availability of cell phone, easily accessible WiFi sites, and cost-effective internet plans.

Limitations

While scoping reviews examine the breadth of evidence available on a topic, they do not factor in the depth or quality of that evidence [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 30 ]. Some authors have argued that scoping reviews should include an assessment of quality; however, Armstrong et al. [ 25 ] contend that this decision should depend on the resources available for the review as well as the purpose of the scoping review itself. The quantity of data that is generated in a scoping review can be significant and so it is important to find a balance between providing an overview of all types of evidence found and providing detailed data and assessment of a smaller number of studies [ 25 ]. Scoping studies also lack a thorough evaluation of the quality of results, instead producing a narrative account of all available evidence [ 26 , 27 ]. This approach serves to ensure that all resulting evidence is included in the review and does not limit the end number of articles, as in a systematic review.

Conclusions

The diversity of technological interventions utilized to support empowerment is infinite and there is no limit to how ICTs can be implemented in daily lives. This study is novel and essential as it comprehensively describes efforts to use ICTs to empower women, and the imperative for collaborations between researchers, program implementers and policy makers to address the persistent gender disparities in the access to and use of technologies. This research provides a foundation for future research on the concept of empowerment with ICTs in critical areas of outreach, education, lifestyle, health challenge, prevention, and perception of barriers. Outreach was linked to positive health behaviours such as health promotion and decision-making applications. Education interventions varied from learning systems to health relationships for knowledge sharing. Lifestyle ICT interventions were related to external supports, often peer based, for improving healthful choices such as coaching and planning tools. Health challenges and prevention were relevant to specific challenges (e.g., intimate partner violence; chronic diseases) and health literacy issues (e.g., vaccine awareness; screening programs), respectively. The final theme of perceptions of barriers reflected experiences by participants respecting uptake, utilization, and ubiquity of ICTs. Each of these areas is well situated for future intervention research and each area brings focal points and imperatives to this emerging research agenda.

Availability of data and materials

The databases used in the study were all open access and included Scopus, Embase, ABI Inform, Soc Index, Sociological Abstracts, Gender Studies, Springer Link, PsychInfo, Science Direct, and Academic Search Complete. The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

Sustainable Development Goals

Information and communication technology

Information and communications technologies

World Health Organization

United Nations

International Telecommunication Union

Global Positioning System

Subscriber Identity Module

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Women’s Empowerment and Leadership: Barriers and Perspectives

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This chapter examines how women’s economic empowerment and female entrepreneurship can drive the growth and development of nations. Achieving empowerment and autonomy for women requires improving their political, social, economic, and health conditions. It is also essential for sustainable development. The balance between men and women’s roles is crucial in maintaining a household and raising children. Globally, women face challenges to their lives, health, and well-being, due to overwork and a lack of power and influence. In many regions, women have less access to formal education than men, and their skills and abilities often go unrecognized.

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Labidi, N., Gtifa, S. (2023). Women’s Empowerment and Leadership: Barriers and Perspectives. In: Drucza, K., Kaddour, A., Ganguly, S., Sarea, A.M. (eds) Centering Gender in the Era of Digital and Green Transition. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38211-6_8

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CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS article

A three-dimensional model of women’s empowerment: implications in the field of microfinance and future directions.

• 1 Department of Social Psychology, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
• 2 Department of Economics, Econometrics, and Finance, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
• 3 Development Economics Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands

Women’s empowerment is an important goal in achieving sustainable development worldwide. Offering access to microfinance services to women is one way to increase women’s empowerment. However, empirical evidence provides mixed results with respect to its effectiveness. We reviewed previous research on the impact of microfinance services on different aspects of women’s empowerment. We propose a Three-Dimensional Model of Women’s Empowerment to integrate previous findings and to gain a deeper understanding of women’s empowerment in the field of microfinance services. This model proposes that women’s empowerment can take place on three distinct dimensions: (1) the micro-level, referring to an individuals’ personal beliefs as well as actions, where personal empowerment can be observed (2) the meso-level, referring to beliefs as well as actions in relation to relevant others, where relational empowerment can be observed and (3) the macro-level, referring to outcomes in the broader, societal context where societal empowerment can be observed. Importantly, we propose that time and culture are important factors that influence women’s empowerment. We suggest that the time lag between an intervention and its evaluation may influence when empowerment effects on the different dimensions occur and that the type of intervention influences the sequence in which the three dimensions can be observed. We suggest that cultures may differ with respect to which components of empowerment are considered indicators of empowerment and how women’s position in society may influence the development of women’s empowerment. We propose that a Three-Dimensional Model of Women’s Empowerment should guide future programs in designing, implementing, and evaluating their interventions. As such our analysis offers two main practical implications. First, based on the model we suggest that future research should differentiate between the three dimensions of women’s empowerment to increase our understanding of women’s empowerment and to facilitate comparisons of results across studies and cultures. Second, we suggest that program designers should specify how an intervention should stimulate which dimension(s) of women’s empowerment. We hope that this model inspires longitudinal and cross-cultural research to examine the development of women’s empowerment on the personal, relational, and societal dimension.

Introduction

Throughout history and across nations still today, men on average have greater access to power (e.g., Brown, 1991 ; United Nations Development Programme [UNDP], 2015 ). The gender power model ( Pratto and Walker, 2004 ; Pratto et al., 2011 ) suggests that power is gendered. Specifically, men relative to women have greater access to the use of force, greater access to resource control, less social obligations to uphold, and more advantageous cultural ideologies. This gender inequality can be observed in several aspects of daily life such as access to education, job opportunities, and economic resources ( United Nations Development Programme [UNDP], 2015 ). According to a report by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO] (2014) , in 2011 only 20% of the low-income nations had achieved gender parity in primary education and 66% of the world’s 774 million illiterate adults were still women. There is consensus that gender equity is an important goal to be achieved (e.g., UN Women, 2011 ). More precisely, world leaders have agreed on working toward providing women and girls with equal access to various domains of social life ( United Nations, n.d. ). Diverse interventions have been developed and implemented to strengthen the position of women across the world such as health, educational or financial programs (for an overview see, UN Women, 2016 ). The concept of empowerment has been developed as a framework and process aimed toward addressing the inequity.

Empowerment is a process, from being unpowered to being empowered. Theorizing of empowerment stresses two main perspectives on this process: namely one more individualistic, namely through women’s individual capacities and free exercise of personal choice (e.g., Kabeer, 1999 ) and one more collectivistic, namely through collective behavior and the adherence to cultural norms which emphasize collective growth (e.g., Budgeon, 2015 , Kurtiş et al., 2016 ). Microfinance interventions are based on the assumption that participation in the intervention have empowering effects and stimulate individual growth. However, these interventions are often implemented in more traditional collectivistic cultures. Thus, it is crucial to conduct cultural sensitive research to avoid cultural biases and understand empowerment outcomes in different cultural contexts.

We provide a framework in which we propose that women’s empowerment can be differentiated in three different dimensions, namely personal, relational (with respect to relevant others such as spouse, family, and community), and societal (at the larger social context) empowerment. We conducted our analysis in the field microfinance services as it offers a large body of empirical studies based on literature from different disciplines, mainly psychology, developmental economics, and sociology, in three steps. First, based on the reviewed literature we define women’s empowerment. Second, we review empirical findings based on the three dimensions of women’s empowerment to illustrate how it has been investigated so far in the context of microfinance services across cultures. Third, we integrate these three dimensions in a Three-Dimensional Model of Women’s Empowerment to improve our understanding of what women’s empowerment entails and how microfinance services may help to increase it.

Offering microfinance services (i.e., microloans, business training, saving programs) is currently one of the most prominent means to reduce poverty and empower the disadvantaged, including women (e.g., Armendáriz and Morduch, 2010 ; Kulkarni, 2011 ). The underlying assumption is that market participation will have liberating and empowering effects on women. This neoliberal ideology has been criticized because it neglects to acknowledge local knowledge and practices, and may even reproduce forms of oppression by extending (white) men’s rights to women (e.g., Mohanty, 1995 ; Roodman, 2011 ; Bateman and Chang, 2012 ; Kurtiş et al., 2016 ). Moreover, systematic reviews on the impact of access to microcredit programs on women’s empowerment have provided inconclusive results (e.g., Van Rooyen et al., 2012 ; Duvendack et al., 2014 ; Vaessen et al., 2014 ). Besides, the controversy of microfinance services, this field of research offers a unique context to conduct our analysis.

Defining Women’S Empowerment

In the field of development economics women’s empowerment is defined as the process through which women acquire the ability to make strategic life choices in a context where this ability was previously denied to them ( Kabeer, 1999 ). Kabeer (1999) stresses that the ability to exercise individual choice is based on three interrelated elements – resources, agency , and achievements . Resources refer to material, human, and social expectations and allocations. Agency is the ability or sense of ability to define one’s goals, act upon them, and decide on their own strategic life outcomes. Achievements include a variety of outcomes ranging from improved well-being to achieving equal representation of women in politics. In other words, the underlying assumption is that women’s empowerment is the process of having and using resources in an agentic manner to reach certain achievements (e.g., Kabeer, 1999 ; Malhotra et al., 2002 ; Bali Swain and Wallentin, 2009 ; Khan and Khan, 2016 ). Similarly, psychological research suggests that empowerment is a process that enables people to act on and improve issues that are important for their individual lives, their communities, and their society (e.g., Bandura, 1986 ; Page and Czuba, 1999 ; Maton, 2008 ; Cattaneo and Chapman, 2010 ). These definitions stress the expansion of women’s individual capacities and a free exercise of personal choice (see Budgeon, 2015 ; Kurtiş et al., 2016 ). However, previous research has highlighted that the act of choosing does not necessarily equate progressive outcomes for women, because women’s individual choices are historically and structurally conditioned (for a debate on choice feminism see Budgeon, 2015 ). Indeed, this focus on women’s individual liberties and growth is grounded in Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic (WEIRD; Henrich et al., 2010 ) realities and may marginalize the experience of women in different societies (e.g., Carby, 1997 ; Kurtiş and Adams, 2015 ). Decolonial feminist psychology stresses the importance of being sensitive to cultural contexts, and gaining insights from (rather than ignoring or devaluing) the experience of women in low income countries (coined majority-world spaces in literature in this field to reflect the majority of humankind inhabiting these societies; Kağitçibaşi, 1995 ; Kurtiş and Adams, 2015 ; Kurtiş et al., 2016 ). In line with this perspective, a recent study (e.g., Dutt et al., 2016 ) focused on the conception of women’s empowerment through collective rather than individual business ownership, thereby adhering to relevant cultural norms emphasizing collective rather than individual growth ( Kurtiş et al., 2016 ). In the definition of women’s empowerment the collective is also considered. Stromquist (1995) described empowerment as a multifaceted concept including different components ranging from women’s understanding of the causes of their suppression to acting collectively as a group toward social change. The work builds upon the assumption that participation in small groups with a collective agenda is the first step toward women’s empowerment. Individual and collective agency are thus crucial in the development of women’s empowerment ( Stromquist, 2015 ).

Importantly, research so far has studied a variety of very different components of women’s empowerment. Indeed, empirical research has investigated women’s empowerment with measures such as agency, autonomy, capacity for action, self-determination, and self-confidence (e.g., Cheston and Kuhn, 2001 ; Malhotra et al., 2002 ; Narayan, 2005 ; Hansen, 2015 ). However, all definitions stress that women’s empowerment is a multifaceted concept, which includes different components and assumes that empowerment is a process from being un-empowered to becoming empowered. Combining these views, we propose that empowerment is a multifaceted process , which involves individual as well as collective awareness, beliefs, and behavior embedded in the social structure of specific cultural contexts. In the current paper, we next review empirical research in the context of microfinance services to understand (1) which specific components of women’s empowerment are assessed and (2) differentiate those components in personal, relational, and societal empowerment.

Women’S Empowerment in the Context of Microfinance Services

There is a large body of research on impacts of microfinance services on economic outcomes (for reviews see Banerjee et al., 2015 ). In the current paper, we have selected research conducted in diverse cultural contexts that has specifically focused on women’s empowerment as an outcome. Previous research reports mixed evidence for the impact of access to microfinance services on women’s empowerment (e.g., Duvendack et al., 2014 ). The diversity of reported findings may in part be explained by two main methodological differences in the studied interventions. First, microfinance programs greatly differ in their offered services ( Armendáriz and Morduch, 2010 ). Studies report the impacts of a group lending versus individual microcredit programs (e.g., Attanasio et al., 2013 ) 1 , the impact of training programs differing in content and length (e.g., Kim et al., 2007 ), or microfinance interventions which may include training, saving activities, and micro loans (e.g., Hansen, 2015 ). Second, the study designs differ and include results from nationwide demographic survey data (e.g., Banerjee et al., 2015 ), randomized control trials (e.g., Tarozzi et al., 2015 ), behavioral games (e.g., Bulte et al., 2016 ), or semi-structured in-depth interviews (e.g., Sanyal, 2009 ) 2 . Together, these two main methodological differences make it difficult to systematically compare results and are important to keep in mind (for a review paper see Duvendack et al., 2014 ).

To integrate the findings of previous research, and to gain a deeper understanding of women’s empowerment in the field of microfinance services, we propose a Three-Dimensional Model of Women’s Empowerment. This model assumes that women’s empowerment can be differentiated at three distinct dimensions: (1) the micro-level dimension, referring to individuals’ personal beliefs as well as actions where personal empowerment can be observed, (2) the meso-level dimension, referring to beliefs as well as actions in relation to relevant others where relational empowerment can be observed, and finally (3) the macro-level dimension, referring to outcomes in the broader, societal context where societal empowerment can be observed. In the context of women’s empowerment, capturing women’s self-confidence would be located at the micro level, women feeling and acting confident in relation to their partner or social network would be a meso-level outcome, and women’s situation in society would be located at the macro level.

Importantly, our aim is not to provide a full literature review, but an overview of different operationalizations of empowerment. We categorize different operationalizations into personal, relational, and societal empowerment to illustrate the importance of differentiating between these three dimensions. More precisely, we selected studies assessing commonly used quantitative and qualitative measures of women’s empowerment on the personal dimension, the relational dimension, and at a broader societal dimension (see Table 1 for an overview of the discussed measures).

TABLE 1. Overview of reported operationalisations of women’s empowerment discussed in this article.

Personal Empowerment

Previous research has assessed the impact of access to microfinance services on different components of women’s beliefs about their personal strength. Specifically, it has examined self-esteem (e.g., Stromquist, 1995 ; Basargekar, 2009 ; Kato and Kratzer, 2013 ), control beliefs (e.g., Morgan and Coombes, 2013 ; Hansen, 2015 ), self-confidence ( Burra et al., 2005 ; Kim et al., 2007 ), and self-efficacy (e.g., Kato and Kratzer, 2013 ). We refer to these components as personal empowerment as they assess different psychological aspects about personal beliefs and actions. We have selected two different commonly used operationalizations, namely control beliefs ( Hansen, 2015 ) and self-efficacy/self-esteem ( Kato and Kratzer, 2013 ).

First, Hansen (2015) quantitatively examined the impact of a microfinance program (including skills training, saving activities, and micro loans) on psychological empowerment among women living below the poverty line in Sri Lanka. Women who had participated in the microfinance program for a period of 12–18 months were compared with a matched comparison group (no access to the program). To assess personal empowerment participants were asked to indicate their belief in their ability to control events affecting them with a self-report questionnaire (so called control beliefs, adopted from Rotter, 1966 ). Results indicated that women who had participated in the program reported higher levels of internal control beliefs compared to the comparison group.

Second, Kato and Kratzer (2013) 3 quantitatively and qualitatively examined the impact of membership in microfinance institutions on women’s empowerment in Tanzania. Women who were members of the microfinance institutions were compared with non-members. Personal empowerment was measured with a self-report questionnaire assessing self-esteem and self-efficacy. Results indicated that women who were members of the microfinance institutions reported higher levels of self-esteem and self-efficacy than the comparison group. This result was further supported by in-depth interviews with ten members of the institutions who reported that participation in the microfinance program made them feel stronger and more respected by their families and community.

Further research in this field showed that women reported higher levels of self-esteem (e.g., Stromquist, 1995 ; Basargekar, 2009 ; Kato and Kratzer, 2013 ), stronger internal control beliefs (e.g., Morgan and Coombes, 2013 ; Hansen, 2015 ), and increased self-confidence ( Burra et al., 2005 ; Kim et al., 2007 ). Overall, research investigating the impact of microfinance services showed mostly positive impacts for personal empowerment with respect to individual choice.

Relational Empowerment

Other research on women’s empowerment has focused on women’s position in relation to relevant others, such as their partner, family, or social networks. Specifically, previous research examined the relation between access to microfinance services and women’s relationships with their partner by assessing women’s bargaining power within the household; the extent to which they have a say over household spending (e.g., Holvoet, 2005 ; Pitt et al., 2006 ; Duvendack et al., 2014 ; Upadhyay et al., 2014 ; Banerjee et al., 2015 ; Datta, 2015 ; Garikipati et al., 2016a ), their freedom of mobility to visit places such as grocery stores or relatives outside the village ( Pitt et al., 2006 ; Bali Swain and Wallentin, 2009 ; Datta, 2015 ) but also (risk of) intimate partner violence (e.g., Goetz and Sen Gupta, 1996 ; Kabeer, 1999 ; Rahman, 1999 ; Ahmed, 2005 ; Naved and Persson, 2005 ). Previous research also examined the relation between access to microfinance services and women’s membership in social groups (such as microfinance groups, school groups, religious groups, women’s groups) by measuring the number of social networks they are members of (e.g., Pitt et al., 2006 ; Sanyal, 2009 ; Hansen, 2015 ), seeking, receiving, or providing help in times of crises (e.g., Sanyal, 2009 ), or inclination to participate in collective action (e.g., Kim et al., 2007 ; Sanyal, 2009 ; Datta, 2015 ). We refer to these components as relational empowerment as they assess different aspects of women’s position in relation to others. Below we will illustrate three different studies, one investigating intra-household decision-making power ( Banerjee et al., 2015 ), one investigating experiences of intimate partner violence ( Rahman, 1999 ), and one investigating women’s social capital ( Sanyal, 2009 ).

First, Banerjee et al. (2015) conducted a large-scale randomized control trial to investigate the impact of a group lending microcredit program on women’s intra-household decision-making power in India. Women who had received a micro loan through their participation in the microfinance program 15–18 months ago were compared with a control group (no access to the program). To assess relational empowerment participants were asked to indicate who takes decisions about spending money on twelve different expenditures (e.g., food, education, investment). These twelve indicators of women’s decision-making power were combined with four social indicators (e.g., number of female infants; enrollment of teenage girls) as a proxy for women’s empowerment. Results indicated that women who had participated in the program did not show an increase in women’s empowerment compared to the comparison group.

Second, Rahman (1999) set out to qualitatively examine the implications of a micro credit lending program in achieving equitable and sustainable development, including women’s empowerment in the context of a Grameen Bank in Bangladesh (participants could apply for a micro loan). To assess relational empowerment a variety of ethnographic methods were used to assess women’s experiences of intimate partner violence, and of violence by other members of the lending group and loan officers. Results indicated that a majority of female microfinance borrowers reported increased violence in the study village and increased violence and aggressive behavior (verbal aggression and physical assault) within the household because of their involvement with the bank.

Third, Sanyal (2009) conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with female microfinance borrowers in India to examine the impact of microfinance services in promoting women’s social capital and their capacity to influence social norms and practices (participants received loans). Female borrowers who were a member of one of 59 microfinance groups were selected from a stratified random sample to participate in the research. To assess relational empowerment participants were asked about their levels of agency and of social capital before and after their group membership to generate retrospective data about changes in their ability to engage in actions that they could not perform before (e.g., ability to interact with people outside the family and kinship ties, physical mobility, participation in council meetings, seeking, receiving, or providing help in times of crises). The average period of group membership was 4 years. Results indicate that women’s membership in microfinance groups may improve their agency with respect to interpersonal behavior and facilitate social group membership.

Together, these studies suggest that microfinance services have mixed results regarding relational empowerment. Other research also showed mixed results, ranging from no effects to positive and even negative effects. For example, women, who participated in a microfinance program, showed no increase in intra-household decision-making power (e.g., number of expenditure decisions made by women; Banerjee et al., 2015 ), whereas another study indicated an increase in intra-household decision-making power (e.g., Pitt et al., 2006 ). Furthermore, some research provided evidence that women who received access to microfinance services experienced a decrease (e.g., Schuler et al., 1996 ; Kabeer, 1999 ; Copestake et al., 2001 ) whereas other research reported an increase in (risk of) intimate partner violence (e.g., Goetz and Sen Gupta, 1996 ; Rahman, 1999 ; Ahmed, 2005 ; Naved and Persson, 2005 ). Finally, research examining women’s engagement in social groups reported positive impacts such as larger social networks (e.g., Pitt et al., 2006 ; Sanyal, 2009 ; Hansen, 2015 ) and increased levels of seeking, receiving, or providing help in times of personal or domestic crises, as well as involvement in collective action ( Sanyal, 2009 ). Overall, research investigating the impact of microfinance services showed mixed impacts for relational empowerment.

Societal Empowerment

To the best of our knowledge, women’s empowerment in the societal dimension has so far been assessed with indices that map gender gaps in human development across nations such as the Gender Development Index or specific components such as the percentage of parliamentary seats held by women. In the context of microfinance, macro-economic analyses provide insights in for example the percentage of female microfinance borrowers (e.g., D’Espallier et al., 2010 ; Hermes et al., 2011 ), female clients with school aged children in school (e.g., Women’s World Banking, 2013 ), female leadership in microfinance institutes (e.g., Strøm et al., 2014 ), female staff promotion and attrition ( Women’s World Banking, 2013 ), average loan balance for female borrowers, and financial literacy services offered to women (e.g., Women’s World Banking, 2013 ). Important to note, these studies focus on industry level indices of empowerment and do not relate to the societal level. In other words, they do not assess the impact of access to microfinance services on women’s empowerment in society but rather the impact of the mere presence of women in the context of microfinance services. We will illustrate this research with two different studies.

First, Hermes et al. (2011) examined the relationship between efficiency of microfinance institutions and outreach to the poor based on data from 435 microfinance institutes. Percentage of female microfinance borrowers was used as an indicator of outreach. On average across different loan types, 58% of the microfinance borrowers were female. The results indicate that there is a trade-off between outreach to women and efficiency of microfinance institutions. More precisely, the data suggests that microfinance institutes focusing more on female borrowers are less efficient with respect to financial performance by microfinance institutes. Second, D’Espallier et al. (2010) examined whether the percentage of female clients was related to repayment performance based on data from 350 microfinance institutions in 70 countries. The relationship between female clients and female gender bias in lending policies and indicators of repayment behavior (portfolio at risk, loan loss write-offs, and provisions) was examined. On average across different loan types, 73% of the microfinance borrowers were female. Results indicate that microfinance institutes with higher proportions of female borrowers have lower portfolio at risk and lower write-off rates indicating better repayment performance.

To conclude, these reported macro-economic effects of women’s empowerment offer insight in cross-country comparisons on gender performance of microfinance institutions and possible relations between gender performance and financial performance by the microfinance institutions. Previous research examining these relations shows mixed results. For example, the percentage of (poor) female microfinance borrowers was positively (e.g., Hulme and Mosley, 1996 ; D’Espallier et al., 2010 ; Quayes, 2015 ; Abdullah and Quayes, 2016 ), negatively (e.g., Cull et al., 2007 ; Hermes et al., 2011 ), or not (e.g., D’Espallier et al., 2010 ) related to increased financial performance by microfinance institutions. However, while the indicators used in this type of research (e.g., percentage female borrowers, percentage female staff) provide insight in the gender outreach and/or gender effectiveness of different microfinance institutions it does not highlight the position of the female microfinance borrowers themselves.

Thus, previous research in the field of microfinance has not yet operationalized women’s empowerment on the societal level as we suggest in this article. Using the mere presence of women in microfinance institutions as an indicator of women’s empowerment is too narrow (e.g., Geleta, 2013 ). The research mentioned above also illustrates the complexity and potential problems in grouping diverse groups of women together to investigate the outcomes of women’s empowerment. This approach may ultimately lead to a top–down way of discerning women’s empowerment. To gain a deeper understanding of women’s empowerment on the societal dimension, research should assess women’s position in society in two ways. Indeed, research should both examine women’s position by analyzing objective information about women’s social conditions (i.e., status) as well as, most importantly, examine women’s position relative to men (i.e., situation; for a similar argument see Johnston, 1985 ). We refer to women’s position at a broader societal dimension as societal empowerment . Thus, we suggest that future research should follow female microfinance borrowers over time to investigate how they achieve more opportunities and rights (e.g., voting; Johnston, 1985 ; Beteta, 2006 ; education; Dijkstra, 2002 ). Additionally, future research should investigate how women can use these gains effectively to improve women’s interests at large. For example, by striving toward improvements in women’s position for future generations, such as more strongly supporting their daughters to successfully attend schooling (e.g., Kabeer, 1999 ; Banerjee et al., 2015 ), and follow different career trajectories.

Three-Dimensional Women’S Empowerment Model

We offer a framework suggesting that women’s empowerment can occur at three distinct but related dimensions: the personal, relational, and societal dimension. Based on our review of previous research we find different effects of access to microfinance for each of the three dimensions of women’s empowerment. With the risk of oversimplifying this complex matter, we suggest that the review shows first, that access to microfinance services was associated with higher levels of personal empowerment , such as increased personal control beliefs (e.g., Hansen, 2015 ). Second, female microfinance borrowers showed higher levels of relational empowerment on the level of social group memberships, such as larger social networks (e.g., Pitt et al., 2006 ). However, on the level of intimate relationships we found mixed results, showing for example both increased as well as decreased decision-making power by female borrowers (e.g., Banerjee et al., 2015 ). Third, with respect to societal empowerment , a positive signal is that the percentage of female borrowers receiving microfinance services is relatively high; but research provided mixed results about women’s financial performance, showing positive as well as negative relations between outreach to female borrowers and financial performance by microfinance institutions (e.g., Hermes et al., 2011 ). Important to note, research so far has not tapped into our understanding of societal empowerment as women’s situation relative to men in a broader societal dimension.

Our Three-Dimensional Women’s Empowerment Model borrows the assumption from the ecological systems theory ( Bronfenbrenner, 1994 ) that people do not exist in a social vacuum but encounter different environments throughout their life that may influence their behavior. The ecological system theory, focusing on the development of children, proposes that individuals directly influence their own experiences and vice versa within specific microsystems (e.g., family, school) and between different microsystems (mesosystems). People’s development can also be influenced by settings that the individual is not directly part of (i.e., exosystem: e.g., schoolpolicy). Bronfenbrenner (1994) argues that these three lower-order systems combined, constitute consistencies fitting with relevant cultural ideologies. Next, this cultural macrosystem is influenced by time, such that the past influences the present. Our Three-Dimensional Model of Women’s Empowerment broadly adheres to the same general structure and underscores the importance of the interplay between individuals and their environment.

Additionally, our proposed three-dimensional model concurs with other research noting the importance of considering changes at the individual, the relational, and the communal level when examining processes related to social change for women (e.g., Kabeer, 1999 ; Grabe, 2012 ). Importantly, our model closely ties into the empowerment process described by Rowlands (1997) in the context of social work and education. Rowlands stressed that women’s empowerment occurs at three levels – the personal, close relationships, and collective – and that these three levels have to be taken into account simultaneously when trying to investigate empowerment. We agree with Rowlands’ claim and propose that full women’s empowerment entails all three dimensions of empowerment. However, different from Rowlands we suggest that it is possible to promote and examine empowerment at each dimensions of empowerment independently, depending on one’s research focus and the context in which it is embedded. In fact, we stress that women’s empowerment effects on multiple dimensions need to be differentiated and not combined. While it is common practice in program evaluations to use women’s empowerment indices that aggregate result from several indicators across key areas (e.g., Women’s empowerment in Agriculture Index, Alkire et al., 2013 ), we fear that these aggregates don’t do justice to the different dimensions at which empowerment can be observed.

Most importantly, we stress that one should clearly specify on which dimension of empowerment an intervention focuses to offer more systematic insights in women’s empowerment across studies. If research would only focus on the personal dimension of women’s empowerment (e.g., self-esteem, personal control beliefs) and use these insights to directly conclude that access to microfinance services strengthens women’s empowerment within her social environment, this could provide a skewed insight and may have undesired policy implications. More specifically, when operationalizing women’s empowerment in terms of women’s personal control beliefs it is possible that women feel personally more in control (‘I know what I am doing’), but not in relation to their partner (‘My partner gets aggressive if I try to have a say in important decision-making’). In fact, previous research suggests that women’s increased autonomy resulting from her participation in microfinance services can destabilize the relationship between the female microfinance borrower and her husband and thereby increase the risk of intimate partner violence (e.g., Goetz and Sen Gupta, 1996 ). This may explain the mixed results presented at different dimensions of women’s empowerment (i.e., personal and relational) and illustrates the importance of carefully and explicitly choosing different aspects of women’s empowerment and defining at which dimension(s) an intervention may have impacts. In the following, we discuss two aspects that influence the development of women’s empowerment, namely time and culture.

The Role of Time in Women’s Empowerment

Women’s empowerment is seen as a process rather than a fixed outcome (e.g., Bandura, 1986 ; Kabeer, 1999 ; Malhotra et al., 2002 ; Maton, 2008 ) and described as the development from being un-empowered to becoming empowered (e.g., Kabeer, 1999 ; Bali Swain and Wallentin, 2009 ). As such, already the definition of women’s empowerment underscores the importance of time in understanding its development. However, we know surprisingly little on how women’s empowerment may develop over time. The proposed Three-Dimensional Women’s Empowerment Model may deepen our understanding of the development of women’s empowerment by disentangling the different dimensions where empowerment can be observed. However, we can only speculate about the order in which the three dimensions might develop. Moreover, we stress that the relation between access to interventions and the development of women’s empowerment on the personal, relational, and societal dimension may be time-dependent.

First, if we consider the example of training offered in the context of microfinance services and thus the bottom-up development of women’s empowerment, we may expect personal empowerment to develop within a relatively short time-span. Training in itself may increase people’s self-efficacy and control beliefs, because people can experience their ability to perform certain tasks and increase their beliefs in their capabilities through training ( Bandura, 1997 ). Yet, changing relational dynamics may take more time (e.g., Inglehart and Norris, 2003 ). Empowerment on this dimension is dependent upon other actors and may require more structural transformations (e.g., Dixon et al., 2012 ). Therefore, we suggest to only consider any impact of interventions on relational empowerment over a longer time-span of at least a few years. Lastly, societal empowerment is not likely to be instigated by any single intervention as it is highly related to cultural norms and traditions. Nonetheless, we suggest that societal empowerment could possibly develop over time, though it may be that this dimension of empowerment can only be observed after years (e.g., the new generation), which makes it complex to draw any conclusions about directionality or even causality. Thus, we expect that time may determine whether or not any result can be expected and observed on each of the three dimensions of women’s empowerment. Also, other research argued that the time path of a program should be considered in the timing of evaluations (e.g., King and Behrman, 2009 ; Bonilla et al., 2017 ). To better understand whether effects take time to materialize or whether effects that emerge quickly persist one should measure outcomes longitudinally ( McKenzie and Woodruff, 2014 ).

Second, we propose that the three dimensions are related but that the directionality of the model is not fixed. Even though some sequences may be more probable then other, we stress that women’s empowerment can be instigated at any of the three dimensions or at multiple dimensions simultaneously. In the context of microfinance services, we suggest that women’s empowerment may be a bottom–up process instigated on the personal dimension (i.e., through increased personal agency by contributing to the household income), which may then instigate the experience of empowerment on the relational and/or societal dimension. In line with this suggestion, previous psychological research conducted in the context of microfinance services stressed that women should first become aware of the options that they are individually capable of taking – i.e., their personal capacity – before they can actually proceed to influence aspects that are important to them in their daily life ( Hansen, 2015 ). Similarly, political scientists examining the cross-cultural development of gender equity argue that women must experience personal change before relational power distributions can change ( Inglehart and Norris, 2003 ).

In the context of microfinance services, women’s empowerment may thus be seen as a process typically starting with personal empowerment and resulting in empowerment at all three dimensions, with societal empowerment as the final aspect to develop (for a similar argument see Kabeer, 2005 ). We recognize that this proposed sequence between personal and relational dimensions is based upon an understanding of individuals as independent agents of choice. However, women’s empowerment might also be instigated on the relational dimension (i.e., small collectives; Stromquist, 1995 ). Nonetheless we expect societal empowerment to develop last because societal power is deeply rooted in social systems and values. It is therefore unlikely that any single intervention will completely alter power and gender relations (e.g., Cheston and Kuhn, 2001 ). Other authors similarly argue that gender inequity within societies may ensure that increased intra-household decision-making power (relational empowerment) will not result in structural societal changes (e.g., Johnson, 2005 ; Guérin et al., 2015 ). However, the changes instigated on the personal and relational dimension through access to microfinance services might over time also contribute to women’s empowerment on the societal dimension. Empowerment on the societal dimension may then best be compared with gradual social change where cultural characteristics such as norms and values change ( Pinquart and Silbereisen, 2004 ; de la Sablonniere, 2017 ), which can bring about both cultural gains (i.e., more gender equity) and losses (i.e., less social belonging; Greenfield, 2016 ).

Importantly, such bottom–up development of women’s empowerment is not the only option. One example for a top–down approach to stimulate women’s empowerment starting on the societal dimension is setting gender quotas (e.g., percentage of leadership positions reserved for women). Such an approach in politics aims to increase women’s presence in legislature and to improve gender-related policy outcomes such as inheritance rights (e.g., Htun and Jones, 2002 ). This example illustrates one other possible direction in the process of women’s empowerment in which an intervention is implemented at the societal level and should result in empowerment in the other two dimensions.

In sum, we suggest that time is crucial in predicting empowerment effects. First, the model suggests that the time lag between an intervention and its evaluation may influence when empowerment effects on the different dimensions are likely to be found Second, the model suggests that the three dimensions are related but that the sequence in which they can be observed depends on the implemented type of intervention.

The Role of Culture in Women’s Empowerment

In the current article we discussed studies conducted in a variety of different cultural contexts, such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Tanzania. Obviously, there are important differences between these cultures. Culture can be defined as the dynamic patterns of ideas, practices, institutions, products, and artifacts that are shared by certain groups of people ( Markus and Kitayama, 2010 ). While individual differences between people from the same cultural background are omnipresent, people within the same culture tend to hold similar values, beliefs, and practices (e.g., Smith et al., 2013 ). Across cultures, people may thus for example differ in how they construe their self-concept (independent or interdependent; Markus and Kitayama, 1991 ), to what extent they tolerate deviant behavior, and how strongly they adhere to social norms (tight or loose cultures; Gelfand et al., 2011 ). It may be crucial to consider these social norms in understanding and stimulating social change ( Tankard and Paluck, 2016 ).

As highlighted in previous research, gender relations vary both geographically and over time and therefore should always be investigated in specific contexts and pertain to realities of women’s lives rather than being based on a generalized assumption that they are oppressed ( Mosedale, 2005 ; Haase, 2011 ; Kurtiş and Adams, 2015 ). Indeed, due to the diversity in interventions and cultural differences, access to microfinance cannot be expected to have one single consistent impact story ( Garikipati et al., 2016b ). Instead, previous research underscores the importance of considering factors such as cultural norms and attitudes in the development of women’s empowerment (e.g., Johnston, 1985 ; Mayoux, 1999 ; Armendáriz and Morduch, 2010 ; Sardenberg, 2010 ). In fact, it has been stressed that empowerment develops through the interaction between the individual and the cultural context (e.g., Narayan, 2005 ) and that failure to consider socio-political and cultural structures can reinforce existing power imbalances (e.g., Dutt et al., 2016 ). Below we discuss how culture influences the meaning of women’s empowerment.

First, previous research suggests that often-used indicators of women’s empowerment reflect an understanding of women’s empowerment based on culturally specific practices (e.g., female seclusion in South Asia) that may not apply to other cultures (e.g., Heckert and Fabric, 2013 ; Duvendack and Palmer-Jones, 2017 ). In line with this assumption, qualitative research conducted in Guatemala concluded that local women from five communities in Chimaltenango and Quetzaltenango did not feel empowered by having sole autonomy and decision-making power within the household but rather sought the involvement of their husbands ( Carter, 2002 ). A similar conclusion was drawn based on narratives of Bangladeshi and Afghan women who chose quite different pathways of change, shaped by culturally unique norms, values and institutions, in seeking a greater degree of agency in their own lives ( Kabeer, 2012 ). While for the interviewed Afghan women awareness of different realities experienced through migration and different regimes influenced personal empowerment, for the interviewed Bangladeshi women personal empowerment translated into greater awareness of rights and willingness to fight for them on a societal level. Moreover, how people experience each of the three dimensions of empowerment may differ based on diverse understandings of the self and the society across cultures. In cultural contexts where the social world is perceived as a dense network of connections, characterized by obligations for care and support ( Kurtiş et al., 2016 ), women’s experience of personal empowerment may be more relational than in cultural contexts where the social world is perceived as more independent. For example, research examining the impact of women’s business ownership on women’s empowerment among Maasai women in Tanzania showed that cooperative business ownership was more strongly related to women’s empowerment than individual business ownership ( Dutt et al., 2016 ). The authors suggest that the cooperative business ownership was more successful because it adhered to local cultural norms of social relations by emphasizing the community rather than the individual ( Dutt et al., 2016 ; Kurtiş et al., 2016 ).

Indeed, psychological scholars highlight the necessity to draw upon local understandings to resonate with local realities and better serve local communities ( Adams et al., 2015 ). Since women in local communities are best aware of what women’s empowerment means to them, it may thus be crucial to allow them to set their own agenda in matters related to enhancing their own sense of empowerment ( Stromquist, 1995 ; Kurtiş et al., 2016 ). Hence, members of local communities should be involved to facilitate culturally relevant social change without marginalizing women’s voices ( Dutt et al., 2016 ). While the potential lack of generalizability and tendency to overlook problematic indigenous practices may need to be considered ( Adams et al., 2015 ), this strategy allows us to not only offer culturally adapted interventions but also reconsider often-used concepts (e.g., Comaroff and Comaroff, 2012 ). As argued in previous research, access to microfinance services may only empower women if cultural norms and expectations are taken into account (e.g., Geleta, 2013 ). In line with this theorizing, we expect that cultures influence how women’s empowerment is defined, which aspects are important, and which components reflect women’s empowerment on each of the three dimensions. Accordingly, we expect that one intervention can have diverse impacts on each of the three dimensions of women’s empowerment in different cultural contexts. For example, an intervention through which women gain more economic independence might only increase women’s likelihood of leaving their partner in societies where divorced women are not seen as social outcasts.

Second, women’s empowerment is considered as a process wherein women challenge existing norms and culture of the society in which they live ( Bali Swain and Wallentin, 2009 ). Accordingly, it is crucial to be aware of the cultural context and the position of women in it. Previous research highlighted that culturally defined norms and practices should be considered for a transition away from classic patriarchy to develop ( Kandiyoti, 1988 ). Some form of patriarchy is prevalent across almost all cultures (e.g., Stockard and Johnson, 1992 ). However, psychological research indicated that cultures differ in the extent to which they value gender equity (e.g., Hofstede et al., 2010 ) and the extent to which certain gender roles are subscribed to (e.g., McCrae et al., 2005 ). Importantly, these gendered norms and beliefs may mediate the relation between structural equity and female suppression ( Archer, 2006 ). Indeed, previous research reported a link between adhering to patriarchal values and sexual violence against women (e.g., Yodanis, 2004 ). In countries where women held a weaker position in society men more frequently showed physical aggression toward women relative to the frequency with which women showed physical aggression toward men ( Archer, 2006 ).

In sum, the prevalence of gender inequity may obstruct possible structural societal changes resulting from access to microfinance services (e.g., Guérin et al., 2015 ). Empirical evidence supports this assumption. Indeed previous research analyzing the impact of fifteen different programs in Africa reports that women’s empowerment depends on inflexible, household- and region-specific, social norms, and traditions ( Mayoux, 1999 ). Similar conclusions were drawn based on a five-country study in Asia, which indicated that gender norms strongly influence the extent to which women experience empowerment ( Oppenheim Mason and Smith, 2003 ). Thus, we propose that it is important to understand the cultural context and the position of women in society to understand the development of women’s empowerment.

To conclude, we suggest that cultures may differ with respect to which components of empowerment are appropriate indicators of empowerment. Moreover, we suggest that the cultural context should be considered to properly understand the development of women’s empowerment. Accordingly, when developing interventions, cultural norms should be identified and described when presenting impacts, thereby facilitating comparison between studies. To investigate at what time access to an intervention impacts women’s empowerment at each of the three different dimensions across cultures, we encourage future longitudinal and cross-cultural research to examine the development of women’s empowerment on the personal, relational, and societal dimension.

Implications and Future Perspectives: Toward a Better Understanding of Women’S Empowerment

In this paper, we aimed to increase our understanding of women’s empowerment and how it should be studied in future research. We can derive four main conclusions based on our work: First, women’s empowerment might best be conceptualized as a multifaceted process, which involves individual as well as collective awareness, beliefs, and behavior embedded in the social structure of specific cultural contexts. Second, based on the research reported above examining the impact of access to microfinance services on the development of women’s empowerment, we concur with conclusions by previous research (e.g., Duvendack et al., 2014 ; Vaessen et al., 2014 ) that inconclusive results exist on the relation between microfinance and women’s empowerment. Previous research has suggested that existing misconceptions over the potential gender effects of microfinance stem from a simplistic vision of the complex process that is empowerment (e.g., Garikipati et al., 2016b ). This is in line with our third conclusion: the impact of access to microfinance services on the development of women’s empowerment is hard to assess, because it is difficult to properly compare results across studies. However, if we differentiate between the three dimensions of empowerment specified in the Three-Dimensional Model of Women’s Empowerment such comparisons may be improved and more consistent patterns of findings may emerge. Fourth, two crucial moderators of women’s empowerment, time and culture, should be considered to increase our understanding of women’s empowerment and its development.

Most of the work discussed in this paper operationalized empowerment based on an understanding of women as individual agents of change. However, including empowerment measures acknowledging the importance of vicarious others in women’s experiences of empowerment – focusing on the beliefs others in one’s network hold about an individual versus own beliefs – may enrich our understanding of women’s empowerment. Thus, concurring with the decolonial feminist perspective (e.g., Kurtiş and Adams, 2015 ) we suggest that future research should be sensitive to cultural contexts, and gain insights from the experience of women in majority-world spaces. We invite future research to develop measures to assess women’s empowerment based on local operationalizations and different perspectives. Moreover, we propose that by focusing on three dimensions of empowerment, our model offers one way to consider the relativity of context and culture in women’s empowerment. By considering not only on individual dimensions of empowerment but also on relational and societal empowerment we provide a first suggestion toward an understanding of women’s empowerment that also applies to cultural worlds of embedded interdependence (see Markus et al., 1997 ).

Importantly, we have focused on the measurement of women’s empowerment in the context of microfinance services. As such, the proposed model is most strongly substantiated in this specific context. Nonetheless, we propose that the suggested differentiation between three different dimensions may also apply to different interventions, which aim to strengthen the position of women. Additionally, in accordance with previous work (e.g., Kurtiş and Adams, 2015 ) we propose that the need for empowerment exists across the globe and is not unique to majority-world spaces. While most of the cited research was conducted in these societies we suggest that the different dimensions of empowerment are similarly applicable to women in WEIRD ( Henrich et al., 2010 ) settings. Additionally, just as women’s empowerment can be analyzed on personal, relational, and societal dimensions, this should similarly apply to other forms of empowerment for different marginalized groups. For example, we propose that this framework could also be used to understand the impact of diversity and inclusion-programs in industry-settings (e.g., International Labour Organization, 2014 ). We invite future research to use this general framework in different contexts and among different target groups.

We derive two main implications from our work. First, we suggest that future research should differentiate between the three dimensions of women’s empowerment specified in the Three-Dimensional Model of Women’s Empowerment, thereby increasing our understanding of women’s empowerment and its development and facilitating comparison of results between studies and cultures. We hope that our model encourages future research to focus more on the development of women’s empowerment over time. As a result, stronger theories may develop regarding how and why certain components on each dimension of empowerment could be impacted by different interventions. Second, but related, we suggest that program designers should specify how an intervention should stimulate which dimension(s) of women’s empowerment. When developing a theory of change ( White, 2009 ), detailing how and why activities will bring about anticipated changes in the short- and in the long-term, program designers should consider the three dimensions of women’s empowerment. Moreover, researchers and program designers should consider after what time they would expect specific impacts on each of the three dimensions of women’s empowerment in specific cultural contexts. We propose that the choice of intervention and of cultural context has consequences for to be expected pathway through which women’s empowerment may develop and be observed.

Empowering women is seen as one of the central issues in the process of sustainable development for many nations worldwide (e.g., Sen, 1999 ; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD], 2012 ; United Nations Economic Commision for Europe [UNECE], 2012 ; Gates, 2015 ). Around the globe, governments and different organizations strive to increase women’s empowerment by implementing different interventions such as offering access to microfinance services to promote sustainable development and human rights.

The Three-Dimensional Model of Women’s Empowerment integrates different literatures studying the impact of offering microfinance services on women’s empowerment. The core premise of the model is to differentiate between three different dimensions of women’s empowerment, namely (1) personal empowerment, referring to individual’s personal beliefs as well as actions, (2) relational empowerment, referring to beliefs as well as actions in relation to relevant others, and (3) societal empowerment, referring to the situation of women in the broader societal context to understand how women’s empowerment may develop. Furthermore, unraveling two important moderators of empowerment, namely time and culture, the model allows a more dynamic understanding of why some women may feel more empowered than others, why some women may express higher levels of personal but not relational empowerment, and why one specific microfinance intervention may show positive impacts on women’s empowerment in one but not another nation. Integrating all three dimensions of women’s empowerment into one research model provides new theoretical insights into how women’s empowerment may develop through access to microfinance services and offers clear practical implications for involved stakeholders in the field.

Author Contributions

MH, NH, SO, and RL contributed to the discussion and development of the conceptual framework of this article. MH and NH conducted the literature review, analyzed the results, and wrote the manuscript. SO contributed to the rewriting of the manuscript. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgment

We are grateful to Martijn van Zomeren and Julia Sasse for their valuable feedback on an earlier version of this work.

• ^ We focus on the different dimensions on which women’s empowerment can be measured, not the different levels on which interventions can operate. However, we note that microfinance initiatives targeting individual women compared to initiatives targeting women’s groups may yield different outcomes in terms of women’s empowerment across all three dimensions (e.g., Dutt et al., 2016 ).
• ^ The validity of some of the different measurement-techniques has been debated (e.g., self- report; Cook and Campbell, 1979 ). However, in the current paper we aim to offer an overview of the different measures used to operationalize dimensions of women’s empowerment and will thus not engage in this debate.
• ^ For this article we have focused on two measures reported in this article representing personal empowerment, namely self-esteem and self-efficacy.

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Keywords : empowerment, agency, efficacy, gender relations, women, microfinance, culture

Citation: Huis MA, Hansen N, Otten S and Lensink R (2017) A Three-Dimensional Model of Women’s Empowerment: Implications in the Field of Microfinance and Future Directions. Front. Psychol. 8:1678. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01678

Received: 29 May 2017; Accepted: 12 September 2017; Published: 28 September 2017.

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Copyright © 2017 Huis, Hansen, Otten and Lensink. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Marloes A. Huis, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Women's Empowerment and Economic Development

Women's empowerment and economic development are closely related: in one direction, development alone can play a major role in driving down inequality between men and women; in the other direction, empowering women may benefit development. Does this imply that pushing just one of these two levers would set a virtuous circle in motion? This paper reviews the literature on both sides of the empowerment-development nexus, and argues that the inter-relationships are probably too weak to be self-sustaining, and that continuous policy commitment to equality for its own sake may be needed to bring about equality between men and women.

The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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Guest Essay

A Simple Act of Defiance Can Improve Science for Women

By Toby Kiers

Dr. Kiers is a professor of evolutionary biology at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and the executive director of SPUN, a research organization that advocates the protection of mycorrhizal fungal communities.

They don’t tell you beforehand that it will be a choice between having a career in science or starting a family. But that’s the message I heard loud and clear 17 years ago, in my first job after completing my Ph.D. in evolutionary biology. During a routine departmental meeting, a senior academic announced that pregnant women were a financial drain on the department. I was sitting visibly pregnant in the front row. No one said anything.

I took a leave of absence when that child, my daughter, was born. Two years later, I had a son. That second pregnancy was a surprise, and I worried that taking another leave would sink my career. So I pressed on. When my son was barely 3 weeks old, I flew nine hours to a conference with him strapped to my chest. Before delivering my talk, I made a lame joke that the audience should forgive any “brain fog.” Afterward, an older woman pulled me aside and told me that being self-deprecating in public was a disservice to women scientists.

It felt like an impossible choice: to be a bad scientist or a bad mother.

The data suggests I wasn’t alone in feeling those pressures. A study published in 2019 found that more than 40 percent of female scientists in the United States leave full-time work in science after their first child. In 2016, men held about 70 percent of all research positions in science worldwide. Especially for field researchers like me, who collect data in remote and sometimes perilous locations, motherhood can feel at odds with a scientific career.

How have I addressed the problem? Through an act of academic defiance: I bring my kids with me on my scientific expeditions. It’s a form of rebellion that is available to mothers not just in the sciences but also in other disciplines that require site visits and field work, such as architecture and journalism. Bringing your kids to work with you doesn’t have to be something you do only once a year .

It started for me as a simple necessity. When my son was just under 2 and my daughter not yet 4, I took them on an expedition to the base of Mount Kenya in Africa, to study how fungi help trees defend themselves against the elephants and giraffes who feed on them. My son was still nursing, and I didn’t want to stop working. My husband, a poet, came along to stay with them at base camp.

As time went on, I began to embrace the decision to bring my kids with me on my expeditions, not as an exigency of parenting but as a kind of feminist act. When meeting other scientists in the field, the reaction was typically the same: They assumed my husband was leading the expedition. Once the facts were established, researchers were supportive and even willing to lend a hand.

Looking back at those expeditions now — after more than a dozen, in far-flung areas around the globe — I understand that bringing them into the field was more than a rebellion: Their presence on those trips also changed the way I do science, and for the better.

I started tasting soils in the field — a technique I now use to notice subtle differences across ecosystems — only after seeing my kids eat dirt. Children have an uncanny ability to make local friends quickly; many of those new friends have led me to obscure terrain and hidden fungal oases that I otherwise would never have come across. And my kids’ naïve minds routinely force me to rethink old assumptions by asking questions that are simultaneously absurd and profound. Can you taste clouds? Do fungi dream? How loud are our footsteps underground?

What can feel like an inconvenience is often a blessing in disguise. Children force the patience that scientific discovery demands. Last year, my kids and I traveled to Lesotho , in southern Africa. Collecting fungi in such a rugged landscape required horses, guides and months of precise planning. But my daughter caught the flu. Rather than mapping underground fungal life, we spent the week in a hut in a highland village with no running water or electricity, eating fermented sorghum. As the days ticked by, I began to panic, thinking of the fungi that would remain unsampled.

But one morning, as my daughter’s health improved, we were invited to cross a small mountain pass on horses. The local herder allowed me to collect dark soil among the agricultural ruins of his ancestral village. It was a type of soil I had never seen — with fungi that would have remained undescribed had we stayed on track. Thank you, chaos; thank you, kids.

Bringing my kids with me continues to challenge expectations, and not only among fellow scientists. In the summer of 2022, my kids and I embarked on an expedition in Italy to study fungi exposed to extreme heat and wildfire. Hiking across mountains with kids was hard and made even more arduous because a documentary film crew followed us. As we wrangled fungi in burn sites, the cameraman strategically positioned me for shots without my kids, presumably so the footage would look more “professional.”

Female scientists are right to fear being seen as unprofessional. How we talk, how we dress, is constantly under scrutiny — and so many of us mirror our male colleagues. Any deviation from that standard is often considered suspect. The primatologist Jane Goodall famously placed her young son in a cage so that he could safely join her in the field, and it is still a point of controversy, decades later.

At its core, feminism is about having the power to choose. For female scientists, this means having the ability to bring children into the field — or the full support to leave them at home. The pressure is acute because, as research shows, women on scientific teams are significantly less likely than men to be credited with authorship. So for me, it is crucial to keep collecting data with my own hands.

What do my kids make of all this? They both love and hate our expeditions. Frustrated by a grueling day of field work recently, my teenage daughter screamed at me, “You love science more than you love me!” In that moment, she — like so much of the scientific world — believed that the decision was binary: science or family. But by taking her with me into the field, I am relentlessly affirming that I won’t make that choice. My kids won’t make that choice either: They recently helped start a youth climate group to help protect soil fungi, including by organizing protests.

We are taught that good science requires detachment. But what if being a mother — with all the attachments that entails — allows you to explore different but equally fruitful scientific narratives? Last year, an article by the editor who oversees the Science journals argued that scientists should not be “afraid to acknowledge their humanity.” We should take that sound advice a step further and challenge the ideal of detachment. Perhaps by exposing our vulnerabilities — such as the children we are raising — we can change the system.

Toby Kiers ( @KiersToby ) is a professor of evolutionary biology at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and the executive director of SPUN , a research organization that advocates for the protection of mycorrhizal fungal communities.

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