22A Survey-Based Women's Empowerment Index for Low- and Middle-Income Countries: The SWPER Goes Global

Abstract

Abstract Background In 2017, a survey-based women's empowerment index (SWPER) was proposed for African countries, including three domains: social independence, decision making and attitude to violence. We explored the applicability of the SWPER in national health surveys from countries in other world regions. Methods We used data from the latest Demographic and Health Survey for 62 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) since 2000, and adapted the indicator so that it could be used for any LMIC. Adaptations included the exclusion of women's working status and recategorization of the household decision-making related items. We compared the loading patterns obtained from principal components analysis for each country separately with those obtained in a pooled dataset with all countries combined. Country rankings based on the score of each SWPER domain were correlated with their rankings in the Gender Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Inequality Index (GII). Results Most countries presented similar patterns regarding item loadings for the three SWPER empowerment domains. Correlations between the country-specific and global individual-level scores were 0.89 or higher for all countries. Correlations between the country rankings according to SWPER and GDI were, respectively, 0.74, 0.71 and 0.67 for social independence, decision-making, and attitude to violence domains. The correlations were equal to 0.82, 0.67, and 0.44, respectively, with GDI. Conclusions The SWPER global is a suitable common measure of women's empowerment for LMICs, addressing the need for a single consistent survey-based indicator of women's empowerment and allowing wider comparisons across countries and world regions.