The impact of tourism and finance on women empowerment

Abstract

The Goal-5 of United Nations Development Agenda for gender equality and women empowerment through equalizing the ratio of girls and boys enrolment in primary education remains suffered in almost every part of the globalized world, which does not even violate the basic human rights while it is the mandatory foundation for global peace and prosperity. The contribution of international tourism development to empower women is the key initiative of the developed world to provide an equal opportunity to the women to sustain their livelihoods. This study focused on the role of international tourism development on women empowerment through mediating a number of financial factors in a panel of 24 selected European countries, over a period of 1990–2015. The results show that financial intermediaries act as a catalyst to empower women through international tourism. More specifically, tourism and financial factors promote (i) gender parity in tertiary enrollment, (ii) gender parity in primary and secondary school enrollment, (iii) female employment, and (iv) women’s share in non-agriculture wage employment, while the results further support the (i) growth-led tourism, (ii) finance-led growth, (iii) growth stimulate women empowerment, and (iv) tourism-induced women’s empowerment hypothesis across countries.