Validating an Agency-based Tool for Measuring Women’s Empowerment in a Complex Public Health Trial in Rural Nepal

Lu Gram,Joanna Morrison,Neha Sharma,Bhim Shrestha,Dharma Manandhar,Anthony Costello,Naomi Saville,Jolene Skordis-Worrall

doi:10.1080/19452829.2016.1251403

Abstract

Despite the rising popularity of indicators of women’s empowerment in global development programmes, little work has been done on the validity of existing measures of such a complex concept. We present a mixed methods validation of the use of the Relative Autonomy Index for measuring Amartya Sen’s notion of agency freedom in rural Nepal. Analysis of think-aloud interviews (n = 7) indicated adequate respondent understanding of questionnaire items, but multiple problems of interpretation including difficulties with the four-point Likert scale, questionnaire item ambiguity and difficulties with translation. Exploratory Factor Analysis of a calibration sample (n = 511) suggested two positively correlated factors (r = 0.64) loading on internally and externally motivated behaviour. Both factors increased with decreasing education and decision-making power on large expenditures and food preparation. Confirmatory Factor Analysis on a validation sample (n = 509) revealed good fit (Root Mean Square Error of Approximation 0.05–0.08, Comparative Fit Index 0.91–0.99). In conclusion, we caution against uncritical use of agency-based quantification of women’s empowerment. While qualitative and quantitative analysis revealed overall satisfactory construct and content validity, the positive correlation between external and internal motivations suggests the existence of adaptive preferences. High scores on internally motivated behaviour may reflect internalized oppression rather than agency freedom.

Highlights

Women’s empowerment is a central policy issue on the international development agenda and the subject of numerous international commitments including the Sustainable Development Goals (UN General Assembly 2015), the Beijing Platform for Action (UNWOMEN 1995) and the Cairo Declaration on Population and Development (UNPD 1994)
Nepal is among the poorest countries in the world with 25.2% of the population living below the national poverty line (World Bank 2015)
Our results indicate that our simplified and adapted version of the original tool could capture Amartya Sen’s notion of agency freedom

Summary

Introduction

Women’s empowerment is a central policy issue on the international development agenda and the subject of numerous international commitments including the Sustainable Development Goals (UN General Assembly 2015), the Beijing Platform for Action (UNWOMEN 1995) and the Cairo Declaration on Population and Development (UNPD 1994). Quantitative indicators of women’s empowerment have become increasingly popular in global development policy (Harper et al 2014; Kishor and Subaiya 2008; Malhotra and Schuler 2005; UN 2014). The majority of such indicators rely on proxy indicators such as education, employment and political representation of women (UN 2014) or individual control over assets (Doss 2013) or direct measures such as intra-household decision-making and freedom of movement (Kishor and Subaiya 2008). Individual authors have devised their own tools for measuring empowerment (Shroff et al 2009)

Methods

Results

Conclusion