Abstract
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.
Highlights
The King Abdulaziz Center for National Dialogue (2004) discussed the four gaps in the empowerment of women, i.e., a gap in legislative rights and duties, a gap of the unutilized working-capacity of women, the educational gap in women and the social gap of women in society.This report recommended reviewing the prevailing laws related to the status of women in Saudi Arabia, to apply new strategies for formal higher education and to remove the obstacles to women acquiring legal and social positions
This study found that the radio was effective at highlighting women-related problems in society, and that women’s rights accelerated political and economic empowerment
The results show that all measured that all measured variables of political, academic and social empowerment have positive variables of political, academic and social empowerment have positive and statistically and statistically significant covariance with their respective latent political, academic and social significant covariance with their respective latent political, academic and social empowerment empowerment variables
Summary
The King Abdulaziz Center for National Dialogue (2004) discussed the four gaps in the empowerment of women, i.e., a gap in legislative rights and duties, a gap of the unutilized working-capacity of women, the educational gap in women and the social gap of women in society.This report recommended reviewing the prevailing laws related to the status of women in Saudi Arabia, to apply new strategies for formal higher education and to remove the obstacles to women acquiring legal and social positions. The Arab Human Development Report (2005) highlighted the three primary deficiencies of essential human development among women, i.e., problems in acquiring knowledge, a lack of political freedoms and insufficient women’s rights. These problems hinder the human development index of women throughout the Arab region. Improved education and health care for women might activate the role of women in society. The purpose of Arab women in the traditional economy could be enhanced through greater participation in the family and community structure, in the political and liberation movements and in civil society institutions. Arab women have made a great achievement in terms of their education, mainly through their own efforts, i.e., self-education
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