Women empowerment and environmental sustainability in Africa

Abstract This study examines whether and how women’s socioeconomic empowerment affects environmental quality in African countries using the system Generalised Method of Moments. The empirical findings show that environmental sustainability is associated with the socioeconomic empowerment of women. The result remains robust when controlled for women’s political inclusion and female labour force participation. The results equally show that foreign direct investment (FDI) and gross domestic product (GDP) moderate the positive influence of the socioeconomic empowerment of women on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, some critical levels of per capita GDP and FDI should be reached before these interacting variables effectively moderate the socioeconomic empowerment of women for an overall negative effect on GHG emissions. The study shows that women’s empowerment is not only an instrument for environmental outcome, but can be valuable when combined with policies favoring green FDI and economic development in terms of GDP per capita. Policy implications are also discussed in terms of strategies aimed at: (i) attracting FDI that is environmental-friendly and (ii) simultaneously increasing GDP per capita and FDI while ensuring environmental quality.