How socio-economic conditions shape empowerment of indigenous women in El Alto’s tourism sector

This Campbell systematic review examines the effectiveness of women's economic self‐help groups (ESHG) on individual women empowerment in low‐and middle‐income countries. It also examines the mechanisms that empower women through female participants' experiences of ESHG membership. The review summarises findings from 23 quantitative studies and 11 qualitative studies. The vast majority of these studies was conducted in South Asia. ESHG have positive effects on women's economic and political empowerment, as well as social empowerment ‐ such as, women's family size decision‐making power and social mobility. There is no quantitative evidence to indicate positive effects on women's psychological empowerment. However, the qualitative studies suggest that women participating in ESHG perceive themselves as psychologically empowered. ESHG with a training component, such as financial and business education or life skills training, have a larger effect than programs that do not involve training. Important mechanisms which facilitate empowerment are gaining financial skills (economic empowerment); gaining the capability to speak in front of others, access to household decision‐making (psychological empowerment); improved networks and the experience of mutual support from and solidarity with fellow group members (social empowerment); and access to wider social participation combined with an increased understanding of political contexts and individual rights (political empowerment). There is no evidence of increased levels of domestic violence. Qualitative data indicate that ESHG may decrease domestic violence as women gain respect from their partners, families and access to household decision‐making. Few qualitative studies report experiences of disappointment, mistrust and stigma among women who attended ESHG. ESHGs do not reach the poorest citizens. The ‘poorest of the poor’ do not participate for economic and religious reasons, and mechanisms of self‐selection. Plain language summary Motivation: Self‐help groups (SHGs) are implemented around the world to empower women, supported by many developing country governments and agencies. A relatively large number of studies purport to demonstrate the effectiveness of SHGs. This is the first systematic review of that evidence. Approach: We conducted a systematic review of the effectiveness of women's economic SHG programs, incorporating evidence from quantitative and qualitative studies. We systematically searched for published and unpublished literature, and applied inclusion criteria based on the study protocol. We critically appraised all included studies and used a combination of statistical meta‐analysis and meta‐ethnography to synthesize the findings based on a theory of change. Findings from quantitative synthesis: Our review suggests that economic SHGs have positive effects on various dimensions of women's empowerment, including economic, social, and political empowerment. However, we did not find evidence for positive effects of SHGs on psychological empowerment. Our findings further suggest there are important variations in the impacts of SHGs on empowerment that are associated with program design and contextual characteristics. Findings from qualitative synthesis: Women's perspectives on factors determining their participation in, and benefits from, SHGs suggest various pathways through which SHGs could achieve the identified positive impacts. Evidence suggested that the positive effects of SHGs on economic, social, and political empowerment run through the channels of familiarity with handling money and independence in financial decision making, solidarity, improved social networks, and respect from the household and other community members. In contrast to the quantitative evidence, the qualitative synthesis suggests that women participating in SHGs perceive themselves to be psychologically empowered. Women also perceive low participation of the poorest of the poor in SHGs due to various barriers, which could potentially limit the benefits the poorest could gain from SHG membership. Findings from integrated synthesis: Our integration of the quantitative and qualitative evidence suggests there is no evidence for adverse effects of women's SHGs on the likelihood of domestic violence. Women's perspectives in the qualitative research indicate that even if domestic violence occurs in the short term, in the long term the benefits from SHG membership may mitigate the initial adverse consequences of SHGs on domestic violence. Executive Summary BACKGROUND Women bear an unequal share of the burden of poverty globally due to societal and structural barriers. One way that governments, development agencies, and grassroots women's groups have tried to address these inequalities is through women's SHGs. This review focuses on the impacts of SHGs with a broad range of collective finance, enterprise, and livelihood components on women's political, economic, social, and psychological empowerment. OBJECTIVES The primary objective of this review was to examine the impact of women's economic SHGs on women's individual‐level empowerment in low‐ and middle‐income countries using evidence from rigorous quantitative evaluations. The secondary objective was to examine the perspectives of female participants on their experiences of empowerment as a result of participation in economic SHGs in low‐and middle‐income countries using evidence from high‐quality qualitative evaluations. We conducted an integrated mixed‐methods systematic review that examined data generated through both quantitative and qualitative research methods. SEARCH METHODS We searched electronic databases, grey literature, relevant journals and organization websites and performed keyword hand searches and requested recommendation from key personnel. The search was conducted from March 2013–February 2014. SELECTION CRITERIA We included studies conducted from 1980–January 2014 that examined the impact of SHGs on the empowerment of and perspectives of women of all ages in low‐ and middle‐income countries, as defined by the World Bank, who participated in SHGs in which female participants physically came together and received a collective finance and enterprise and/or livelihoods group intervention. To be included in the review, quantitative studies had to measure economic empowerment, political empowerment, psychological empowerment or social empowerment. We also examined adverse outcomes including intimate partner violence, stigma, disappointment, and reduced subjective well‐being. We included quantitative studies with experimental designs using random assignment to the intervention and quasi‐experimental designs with non‐random assignment (such as regression discontinuity designs, “natural experiments,” and studies in which participants self‐select into the program). In addition, we included qualitative studies that explored empowerment from the perspectives of women participants in SHGs using in‐depth interviews, ethnography/participant observation, and focus groups. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS We systematically coded information from the included studies and critically appraised them. We conducted statistical meta‐analysis from the data extracted from quantitative experimental and quasi‐experimental studies, and used meta‐ethnographic methods to synthesize the textual data extracted from the women's quotes in the qualitative studies. We then integrated the findings from the qualitative synthesis with those from the quantitative studies to develop a framework for assessing how economic SHGs might impact women's empowerment. RESULTS We included a total of 23 quantitative and 11 qualitative studies in the final analysis. Initially, we reviewed 3,536 abstracts from electronic database searches and 351 abstracts from the gray literature searches. We found that women's economic SHGs have positive statistically significant effects on various dimensions of women's empowerment, including economic, social and political empowerment ranging from 0.06‐0.41 SD. We did not find evidence for statistically significant effects of SHGs on psychological empowerment. We also did not find statistical evidence of adverse effects of women's SHGs. Our integration of the quantitative and qualitative evidence indicates that SHGs do not have adverse consequences for domestic violence. Our synthesis of women's perspectives on factors determining their participation in, and benefits from SHGs suggests various pathways through which SHGs could achieve the identified positive impacts on empowerment. Women's experiences suggested that the positive effects of SHGs on economic, social, and political empowerment run through several channels including: familiarity with handling money and independence in financial decision making; solidarity; improved social networks; and respect from the household and other community members. Our synthesis of the qualitative evidence (key informant interviews and focus groups) also indicates that women perceive there to be low participation of the poorest of the poor in SHGs, as compared to less poor women. IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY, PRACTICE AND RESEARCH</jats

Women may be considered to have hidden, unutilized potential for the economy and society, if not utilized at their full capacity, i.e., with effective educational, social and political policies. Allowing women to participate fully in an economy may contribute to the sustainable development of the country in question. The empowerment of women may be accelerated if women are educated for this purpose; as a result, the political authorities in Saudi Arabia have proposed a comprehensive framework to empower women. The empowerment of women is essential in the academic sector to develop educational policies for women’s capacity-building. The empowerment of women in the political process is also very important, so they can suggest appropriate policies, rules and laws that favor the empowerment of women in all sectors of the economy and society. The present research aims at testing the effects of academic and political empowerment on the economic, social and managerial empowerment of women, and opens a new horizon of debate in the practical and theoretical domain of female empowerment in Saudi Arabia. To this end, we utilized structural equation modeling due to the endogenous nature of relationships among the hypothesized variables. Perception-based data were collected on the political, academic, economic, social and managerial empowerment of women through a well-structured questionnaire. The data were collected during the period from October 2019 to January 2020 through a simple random sampling method. Then, we tested the direct effect of political empowerment, and its indirect effects through academic empowerment, on the economic, social and managerial empowerment of women. We found that political empowerment has a positive direct effect on economic and managerial empowerment, but an insignificant effect on social empowerment. Further, political empowerment has a positive direct effect on academic empowerment, which, in turn, has positive effects on economic, social and managerial female empowerment. Moreover, these indirect effects are found to be magnitudes larger than the direct effects of political empowerment. This study recommends improving the economic, social and political status of women through political and academic policies, to accelerate sustainable development.

The Nigerian Society is purely Patriarchy in Nature, and since this patriarchal nature is evident in traditionally social, cultural, economic, and religious realms or settings, there is a need for Women's Empowerment that directly influences these sectors. This Study assessed Women's Empowerment programs in Ekiti State, Nigeria. A descriptive Survey design was adopted. Sample size of 500 respondents were selected from 10 local government areas in the State. The Analysis was conducted using Statistical package for social science (SPSS) version 23. The set null hypotheses were tested at a 0.05 level of significance. The set null hypotheses for Psychological Empowerment (B = 0.399, t = 22.853; P&lt; 0.05), Social Empowerment (B = 0.318, t = 15.160, P&lt;0.05), Economic Empowerment (B = 0.305, t=`11.955 P&lt;0.05) and Political Empowerment (B=0.732, t= 21.221, P&lt;0.05). The findings revealed that Social, Economical, Political, and psychological empowerment has significant contributions to Women's Empowerment programs in Ekiti State. The study recommended that Social Empowerment, Economic Empowerment, Psychological Empowerment, and Political Empowerment are key contributors to Women's Empowerment.

Identify and Explaining the Social and Economic Factors Affecting Rural Women Empowerment (Case Study: Rostam County)

Purpose: This study aims to examine how Social Empowerment (SE) and Economic Empowerment (EE) affect Total Empowerment (TE) among women, using an ordinal regression method. The research seeks to explore the relationship between these dimensions of empowerment and their combined impact on women's overall empowerment. Design/Methodology/Approach: This study utilizes a quantitative research methodology, incorporating both primary and secondary data sources. Primary data are gathered via a structured questionnaire distributed to members of Self-Help Groups (SHGs) in Kottayam District, Kerala. Secondary data are sourced from existing literature and financial reports. To analyze the data and examine the relationships between variables, statistical methods such as Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests, ordinal regression, and Spearman's correlation coefficient analysis are utilized. Findings/Result: The results indicate that both Social Empowerment (SE) and Economic Empowerment (EE) are significant predictors of Total Empowerment (TE) among women. The ordinal regression model demonstrates a strong association between SE, EE, and TE, highlighting the importance of addressing both social and economic dimensions for women's empowerment. Additionally, strong positive correlations are observed between TE and SE, TE and EE, and SE and EE, emphasizing the interconnectedness of these empowerment dimensions. Originality/Value: This research enhances the existing literature by offering insights into the multifaceted nature of women's empowerment, especially within the context of Self-Help Groups (SHGs). By examining the impact of SE and EE on TE and exploring their interrelationships, the study offers valuable understanding of the factors driving overall empowerment outcomes among women. The findings highlight the necessity of simultaneously addressing both social and economic empowerment to improve women's well-being and socio-economic status. Paper Type: Empirical Research.

Women's empowerment is one of the most debated and challenging topics in empirical research. In developing countries, women face numerous challenges related to their socio-economic conditions. Microcredit is a powerful tool to empower women. Microcredit institutions provide their services to poor women. The main objective of this study is to analyze the effectiveness of microcredit in promoting women’s empowerment among the borrowers of Akhuwat Islamic Microfinance Bank. Towards this end, we perform the non-parametric test and descriptive analysis based on the sample of 120 women who have taken loans from Akhuwat Islamic Microfinance in the city of Chakwal. Five dimensions of empowerment are used to arrive at an aggregate index of empowerment. These dimensions are economic empowerment, social empowerment, political empowerment, psychological empowerment, and technological empowerment. The study is unique in the sense that no one has used technological empowerment in a previous study. The data were collected through a structured questionnaire and conducted interviews to assess the complexity of the phenomenon of women's empowerment. The collected data were analyzed through SPSS v. 20 and STATA 14 by using the technique of non-parametric tests (Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test) and descriptive statistics. The findings of the study have shown that there are positive results of microcredit on women's empowerment. The most influential dimensions to empower women include economic, social, and technological empowerment. The findings suggest that microcredit plays a crucial role in shaping women's empowerment. The study concludes with recommendations for lenders to leverage microcredit.

Studies have shown that correcting presbyopia among women could increase short-term income and quality of life. However, it is unclear whether these short-term outcomes translate to long-term empowerment. This is partly due to women's empowerment being under-studied in the eye health field. Hence, we attempted to understand Zanzibari craftswomen's perception of how near-vision spectacle correction could empower them. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 craftswomen with presbyopia (7 to 21 April 2022), identified from Zanzibari cooperatives using quota and heterogeneity sampling. We included a sample of tailors, beaders/weavers, and potters who were 40 years and older. Directed content analysis was performed on interview transcripts. Two themes and seven sub-themes emerged from the data. Craftswomen perceived that at the personal level, near-vision spectacle correction could improve their economic empowerment (better income and savings and buying things for themselves), psychological empowerment (more self-confidence and decision-making), political empowerment (taking up leadership roles), and educational empowerment (acquiring new skills). At a relational level, they perceived that near-vision spectacle correction could bring about economic empowerment (ability to buy things for the family), social empowerment (ability to participate in social activities), and educational empowerment (ability to educate other women). Older craftswomen perceived that correcting near vision could empower them at personal and relational levels that encompass economic, psychological, social, political and educational empowerment. The findings laid the foundation for future research into eye health and women's empowerment.

Globally, the empowerment of women is a critical and challenging issue. In considering the problem, the researchers sought to investigate Women’s Empowerment (WE) in the context of Saudi Arabia. In this study the researchers applied quantitative methods and collected the cross-sectional data through a questionnaire based on a random sampling technique. The study utilized 314 useable samples to conclude the investigation. Using path analysis through Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) version 26.0, the study underlines a positive and significant effect of Economic Empowerment (EE) and Social Empowerment (SE) on WE. On the other hand, Political Empowerment (PE) has a negative effect on WE. Moreover, Self-efficacy (SFY) and Family Support (FS) also positively and significantly affect WE. Regarding the mediating effects, SFY mediates the positive relationship of EE and SE with WE. On the contrary, SFY did not develop a positive relationship between PE and WE. Finally, FS plays a crucial mediating role in developing the association between EE, SE, PE and WE among Saudi Arabian women. This study’s findings support policymakers and planners in developing policies and strategies to boost WE significantly. Finally, through the empirical confirmation between EE, SE, PE, SFY, FS and WE in Saudi Arabia, a Middle East country, this study’s findings add further enrichment to the depth of the literature.

In the current research, a quantitative content analysis of four leading newspapers Dawn, Daily Times, Nawa-i-waqt, and Daily Jang was conducted to investigate the patterns of coverage of women empowerment. The time period for this study consisted of November 2023 to April 2024. The results showed that Urdu newspapers gave more coverage to the issue at hand as compared to English newspapers and Nawa-i-waqt gave the maximum amount of news regarding women empowerment as compared to other newspapers. The outcome of this research revealed that Pakistani Urdu newspapers give suitable coverage to women empowerment-related news, although different newspapers use different agendas to portray news related to women empowerment, such as political empowerment, social empowerment, economic empowerment, and education empowerment. The results showed that more importance was given to political and social empowerment and the common agenda of these four newspapers was social and political empowerment.

The empowerment of women is one of the central issues in the process of development of countries all over the world. Poverty is one of the major reasons of women’s disempowerment. Different micro and macro level strategies are being used by government agencies and NGOs for poverty alleviation of women as a way to empower them. Microfinance has become an important component of development, poverty reduction and economic regeneration strategy around the world. In India, Microfinance programme are implemented through Self Help Groups (SHGs). The SHG is an association of people belonging to similar socio-economic characteristic, residing in same locality. The SHGs are voluntary associations of people formed to attain some common goals. These are groups have similar social identity, heritage, caste or traditional occupations. The present study is analyses the role of microfinance in empowering Muslim women as well as non-Muslim women in a comparative perspective and a comparison between members of SHGs and non-members to gain better insights into the working of SHGs. The concept of microfinance is analysed by using the size of loan received, recovery of loan, and period of loan and the economic, social and knowledge empowerment is used to analyse the empowerment. The results were tabulated by using of logistic regression model. Finally, it is concluded that that microfinance brought knowledge and social empowerment than economic empowerment. Impact of micro finance is appreciable in bringing confidence, courage, skill development and empowerment.

This paper described notion of empowerment of Saudi Arabia women through Internet of Things (IoT) for management technology company’s activities under observation regards strategy of development around framework. In this study, building empowerment of Saudi Arabia women using IoT method attracts skills and minds of women's under help of digital transformation system under IoT field for enhancing opportunities of particular work sustainability, and also calculates the participations of women's percentage under the sector of management technology. This study objectives is to testing effects of empowerment of women's on social, economic, political and managerial empowerment, and its create new era of debate under practical activities regards women's empowerment under Saudi Arabia. Investigation found that there is political empowerment has positive effect on managerial and economic empowerment and there is insignificant effect on social empowerment.

Drawing upon recent data, this paper explores the relationship between women’s involvement in Self-Help Group (SHG) based microfinance programmes and their empowerment. The composite empowerment indicator shows that only 13.2% of women associated with microfinance are empowered. The paper finds that though the length of membership in SHGs increases the intensity of women’s economic and political empowerment, it does not show a significant relationship with their social empowerment. It is also observed that ‘economic empowerment’ does not necessarily lead to the attainment of social and/or political empowerment. The paper argues that although SHG-led microfinance programmes have the potential to empower women in some aspects, their capacity in ushering social transformation is limited.

This paper analyses the relationships between economic development, women's social and economic empowerment and reproductive health in rural India using both state- and micro-level data. While previous studies have examined the separate effects of economic development on women's empowerment and reproductive health, and the interrelationships between empowerment and reproductive health indicators, to our knowledge ours is the first to examine the interrelationships among all four variables. Multiple regression analysis of data from 28 states from India's National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3), 2005–2006, shows that both social and economic empowerment are key intervening factors between economic development and reproductive health. Data from 494 women in the micro study from rural Maharashtra in 2007–2008 confirm several of these associations, and demonstrate the added value of women's economic empowerment over social empowerment and broad economic development. Economic empowerment is therefore critical for inducing positive changes in reproductive health for rural Indian women.

Microfinance as a tool for poverty alleviation has attracted much attention especially after Grameen Bank of Bangladesh was awarded the Noble peace prize. Self-help groups (SHGs) in India, which originated during the same time as Grameen Bank, are considered to be an efficient mechanism for delivering microfinance to the poor. Apart from providing economic benefits, participation in SHG also brings for its members social and political empowerment. This paper examines the impact of the level of participation in SHGs on the empowerment (economic, social and political) of women SHG members. The study also investigates the impact of moderating variables, such as socio-economic status, age, and place of residence, on the relationship between the level of participation and empowerment. As we were unable to find suitable scales in the existing literature to measure the level of participation, empowerment (economic, social and political) and socio-economic status, we developed new scales to measure these constructs. Using an interview schedule in a survey method, we interviewed 353 women SHG members from the eastern Indian state of Odisha to collect primary data. Using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), the study explicates the relationship between level of participation and women empowerment. The findings suggest that an increased level of participation in SHGs results in enhanced economic empowerment of its members by bringing in employment opportunities, higher income, stability in current jobs, and improved entrepreneurial abilities. Besides, higher participation also brings in higher social empowerment of members in the form of decision-making capability in households, access to health care, selfconfidence, heightened self-esteem, communication skills, and the ability to transact with banks and NGOs. In addition, increased participation in SHGs leads to higher political empowerment in the form of higher political participation and better community mobilization. Socio-economic status and place of operation significantly moderate the effect of the level of participation on women (SHG member) empowerment. Insights from this study are helpful for the government and non-government agencies working towards empowering women in developing regions. They may take note of the different indicators of participation and role of the significant moderators while implementing similar programs.

BackgroundStudies have shown that correcting presbyopia among women could increase short-term income and quality of life. However, it is unclear whether these short-term outcomes translate to long-term empowerment. This is partly due to women’s empowerment being under-studied in the eye health field. Hence, we attempted to understand Zanzibari craftswomen’s perception of how near-vision spectacle correction could empower them.MethodsSemi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 craftswomen with presbyopia (7 to 21 April 2022), identified from Zanzibari cooperatives using quota and heterogeneity sampling. We included a sample of tailors, beaders/weavers, and potters who were 40 years and older. Directed content analysis was performed on interview transcripts.ResultsTwo themes and seven sub-themes emerged from the data. Craftswomen perceived that at the personal level, near-vision spectacle correction could improve their economic empowerment (better income and savings and buying things for themselves), psychological empowerment (more self-confidence and decision-making), political empowerment (taking up leadership roles), and educational empowerment (acquiring new skills). At a relational level, they perceived that near-vision spectacle correction could bring about economic empowerment (ability to buy things for the family), social empowerment (ability to participate in social activities), and educational empowerment (ability to educate other women).ConclusionOlder craftswomen perceived that correcting near vision could empower them at personal and relational levels that encompass economic, psychological, social, political and educational empowerment. The findings laid the foundation for future research into eye health and women’s empowerment.