Measuring Women’s Economic Empowerment in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Nigeria, and Burkina Faso

Abstract

There are multiple tools to measure women’s economic empowerment but limited information exists about their cross-cultural validity and reliability. This study assesses the psychometric properties of ten questions measuring two dimensions of women’s economic empowerment. It uses cross-sectional data from six low-and-middle-income settings: Kinshasa and Kongo Central (Demographic Republic of Congo), Kenya, Lagos and Kano (Nigeria), and Burkina Faso. The first dimension, household decision making, was proxied by women’s power to decide household purchases on large items, daily needs, medical treatment, and clothes. This dimension was valid and reliable in all settings. The second dimension, financial autonomy, was proxied by whether women had savings, knew where to obtain financial information, and had financial goals. This dimension was valid and reliable in Kenya, Lagos, and Kano. These findings can inform future surveys aiming to measure women’s economic empowerment.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Given gaps in WEE measurement, this study aims to identify a set of items measuring dimensions of WEE that are consistent and reliable across cultures and over time.

• Specifically, the study seeks to measure women’s power in household decision making and financial autonomy that would be consistent across six settings in four African countries.

• By summarizing dimensions of WEE into seven questions, it supports efficiency of current and future population surveys measuring women’s empowerment.

• The findings for women’s household decision making are consistent across settings suggesting they can be generalized to other, similar contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Women’s empowerment
• household bargaining
• women
• gender
• women’s economic empowerment

JEL Codes:

• J16
• J12
• D13

SUPPLEMENTAL DATA

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13545701.2024.2339979.

Notes

1 The questionnaire does not inquire who is the “someone else” who participates in the household decisions.

2 For this question, women were given the following response options: (i) not knowledgeable at all; (ii) not very knowledgeable; (iii) somewhat knowledgeable; and (iv) very knowledgeable. Options (i) and (ii) were coded as “no knowledge” and (iii) and (iv) as “yes knowledge.”

3 This coefficient is equivalent to Cronbach’s alpha, except KR20 is designed for binary items. KR20 is a measure of reliability and assesses internal consistency. $\mathrm{KR}20=\frac{K}{K-1}\left[1-\frac{{\sum }_{i=1}^K{p}_i{q}_i}{{\sigma }_{\mathrm{total}}^2}\right]$, where $p_i$ is the proportion responding positively to item $i$, $q_i$ is $1-p_i$, and $K$ is the number of items in each scale.

4 In a scree plot, the y-axis shows the eigenvalues of the pattern matrix, which represent the amount of variation, and the x-axis shows the number of components. This plot usually has an “L” shape, and it is recommended to retain the number of components that are above the “elbow” of the “L.”

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Carolina Cardona

Carolina Cardona is Assistant Scientist in the Population, Family and Reproductive Health Department at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Cardona’s research pursuits are primarily centered on the field of economic demography, with a particular emphasis on investigating women’s health across the life course. Most of her research has been conducted in the context of low-and middle-income countries, and she has a special interest in the issues of measurement related to women’s health, with ongoing work on contraceptive preferences and women’s economic empowerment.

Anaise Williams

Anaise Williams is Assistant Scientist in the Population, Family and Reproductive Health Department at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Williams researches the areas of gender norms, women’s empowerment, gender equity, and gender-based violence globally in partnership with communities most affected. In collaboration with the World Bank, she has worked on women’s economic empowerment programming across South Asia, with particular focus on Bangladesh.

Elizabeth Gummerson

Elizabeth Gummerson is Executive Director of the Performance Monitoring for Action (PMA) Project and provides technical and operational leadership for the PMA project. Dr. Gummerson’s research work focuses on economic inequality, gender, and the socioeconomic factors that determine access to healthcare. Prior to joining PMA, she worked on implementing HIV-focused household surveys in Africa for over a decade, in partnership with US and African governments and universities. She received her PhD in Demography and a Master’s in Public Affairs, both from Princeton University.

Saifuddin Ahmed

Saifuddin Ahmed is Professor in the Population, Family and Reproductive Health Department at Johns Hopkins University. With a medical background and training in demography and epidemiology, Dr. Ahmed’s work focuses on: a. reproductive epidemiology, including maternal mortality estimation; b. program evaluation for family planning and MCH care; c. healthcare utilizations: problems and issues; and d. quantitative research methods and complex population surveys.

Philip Anglewicz

Philip Anglewicz is Associate Professor in the Population, Family and Reproductive Health Department at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Anglewicz is the Principal Investigator of the Performance Monitoring for Action (PMA) Project; he provides overall strategic direction to PMA as well as overseeing technical aspects of the project, including survey operations, data management, research, and analysis. His primary research interest is demographic change in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). He has also studied the relationship between internal migration, health and HIV status in SSA, and on surviving the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Malawi, which continues a longitudinal panel study of rural Malawians who have been interviewed since 1998.