Systematic review of gendered capability conversion in women’s circular livelihoods in Indonesia

Circular economy programmes are often assessed through material recovery, waste diversion or jobs created, measures that reveal little about whether women gain safer work, fairer returns or greater control over their livelihoods. This systematic review examined women’s circular livelihoods within a Malaysia–Indonesia search scope and the conditions shaping livelihood and empowerment outcomes. Searches of Scopus and the Sunway University EBSCO Discovery Service identified 670 unique records for screening; 11 full texts were assessed and seven reports representing six distinct empirical studies were included. All eligible studies were from Indonesia, so the synthesis supports Indonesia-specific conclusions while identifying Malaysia as an evidence gap. Findings show that income or household economic gains cannot be treated as equivalent to women’s empowerment. Care responsibilities, occupational position, pay, safety, productive resources, markets, organisational practices and institutional support shaped whether participation became a usable capability. The review proposes an evidence-informed Gendered Capability Conversion Framework that accommodates enabling, constraining and ambivalent effects. Given the small heterogeneous evidence base, the framework is presented as a provisional analytical heuristic requiring validation rather than a tested causal model.