Women’s empowerment domains: composition, changes, and determinants

The study investigates the composition, changes, and determinants of five domains of the Women’s Empowerment Index in Agriculture (WEAI) so that domain-specific policy recommendations can be forwarded. The analysis is based on three rounds of nationally representative Bangladesh Integrated Household Surveys (BIHS) covering 2011/12–2018/19 comprising 10,107 observations and applying Tobit models. Results reveal that indices of all domains of WEAI increased significantly over time, as expected. Among socio-economic factors, income sources significantly improve the production, resources, and time domains; education significantly improves the resources, leadership, and time domains; and institutions/infrastructure significantly improve all domains. Asset and/or owned land has no influence on any domain of women’s empowerment. The production environment significantly and negatively influences all domains, while shocks exert significantly negative influences on the production, income, and resources domains. Female education and female household headship significantly improve the resources, leadership, and time domains. Policy implications include targeted interventions to increase income mainly from agricultural sources, improve female education, and promote access to institutions such as Social Safety Net Programs (SSNP), Information and Communication Technology (ICT), and credit to strengthen empowerment across all domains. Additionally, social insurance mechanisms can be introduced to support households withstand shocks.