Women's economic empowerment: realities and challenges for the future

Abstract

Despite an international consensus on the importance of women's economic empowerment, expressed through such agreements as the Beijing Platform for Action, a recent study by the World Economic Forum noted that no country has yet managed to eliminate the gap between the economic participation of women and men. Even countries with high empowerment scores generally perform better in the health and well‐being, educational attainment and political empowerment of women than in their economic participation and opportunities. The research and training activities of the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women described in this article focus on remittances by migrant workers, which is one important way in which gendered economic relationships are changing, and gender and security, in which the participation of women in policy‐making is sought.