Rural Women’s Empowerment in Nutrition: A Framework Linking Food, Health and Institutions

Abstract

Undernutrition remains a wide spread problem, especially for women and their children. A wide body of research has identified women’s empowerment as a contributor to nutritional outcomes for children, and, to a lesser extent, for women themselves. Yet, evidence remains mixed, in part reflecting the difficulties of measuring empowerment, in general and as it relates to nutrition. In-depth interviews with women from rural South Asia reveal that women’s ability to achieve adequate nutritional outcomes often encompass factors overlooked in existing empowerment measures. Combining theories of empowerment and drivers of nutrition with rich case studies from Bangladesh and India, we formulate the concept of women’s nutritional empowerment. We then develop a framework, the Women’s Empowerment in Nutrition grid, to measure and operationalise nutritional empowerment. Our contribution addresses the lack of a systematic approach in the use of empowerment measures in the nutrition literature by formalising a nutrition-focused definition of empowerment. Our conceptualisation offers a basis for a range of tools to inform the design and implementation of effective policies aimed at improving nutrition, with a specific focus on rural women.