The Process of Empowerment

There are various attempts in the literature to develop a comprehensive understanding of empowerment through breaking the process down into key components. The specific components tend to differ depending on the orientation and agenda of the writer, but here as well there is greater consensus than we had expected. Kabeer’s (2001) understanding of “choice” comprises three inter-related components: “resources, which form the conditions under which choices are made; agency, which is at the heart of the process through which choices are made, and achievements, which are the outcomes of choices.” The World Bank’s report on “Engendering Development,” (2001a) defines rights, resources, and voice as the three critical components of gender equality. Chen (1992) describes “resources, perceptions, relationships, and power,” as the main components of empowerment, and Batliwala (1994), characterizes empowerment as “control over resources and ideology.” UNICEF uses the Women’s Empowerment Framework constructed by Sara Longwe, which encompasses welfare, access to resources, awareness-raising, participation, and control (UNICEF 1994).
Resources and agency (in various forms and by various names, e.g., control, awareness, voice, power), were the two most common components of empowerment emphasized in the literature we reviewed. In many discussions, however, resources are treated not as empowerment per se, but as catalysts for empowerment or conditions under which empowerment is likely to occur. In the context of policy and evaluation, it may be more useful to think of resources as “enabling factors”; that is, as potentially critical inputs to foster an empowerment process, rather than as part of empowerment itself. And, in fact, many of the variables that have traditionally been used as “proxies” for empowerment, such as education and employment, might be better described as “enabling factors” or “sources” of empowerment” (Kishor 2000a). As our review of measurement issues and empirical evidence illustrates below, although many empirical studies have used variables such as education and employment as proxies for empowerment, there is a growing understanding that this equation is problematic (Govindasamy and Malhotra 1996; Malhotra and Mather 1997; Kishor 1995; Mason 1998).
The second component, agency, is at the heart of many conceptualizations of empowerment. Human agency is a central concept in A. Sen’s (1999) characterization of development as the process of removing various types of “unfreedoms” that constrain individual choice and agency. Kabeer’s (2001) essay on women’s empowerment draws on Sen’s understanding of agency as well as his conceptualization of the links between individual agency with public action. Among the various concepts and terms we encountered in the literature on empowerment, “agency” probably comes closest to capturing what the majority of writers are referring to. It encompasses the ability to formulate strategic choices, and to control resources and decisions that affect important life outcomes.
Some characterizations of empowerment have included an additional component, which Kabeer refers to as “achievements” and Longwe as “welfare.” And, in international policy processes, women’s empowerment is implicitly equated with specific (usually national level) achievements such as political participation, legal reform, and economic security. In the context of evaluation, we would argue that achievements are best treated as outcomes of empowerment, not as empowerment per se (just as resources may be more usefully construed as enabling factors or catalysts for empowerment). Granted, one might question whether agency really amounts to empowerment if there is no meaningful result in terms of women’s status, strategic position or welfare. But whether any empowerment indicator or form of agency (such as exercising control over decisions or resources) really amounts to empowerment in a particular context will always be an empirical question. As we note elsewhere, it may be possible to identify empowerment indicators that can be applied in a wide variety of contexts, but there will always be situations in which a particular indicator does not signify empowerment. As we will discuss later, this does not mean that the development of empowerment indicators is a futile task, only that the complexities of measuring empowerment must be taken into account in developing conceptual frames and research designs. In identifying agency as the essence of women’s empowerment, we are not suggesting that all improvements in women’s position must be brought about through the actions of women themselves or that empowering themselves is the responsibility of individual women. There is ample justification for governments and multilaterals to promote policies that strengthen gender equality through various means, including legal and political reform, and interventions to give women (and other socially excluded groups) greater access to resources (e.g. World Bank 2001a). National and international institutions have the responsibility for ensuring the inclusion of disadvantaged populations socially, economically, and politically. The question is whether it is useful to describe all actions taken toward that end as “empowerment”, and we would suggest that it is not. The major reason for the emphasis on agency as the defining criterion is because of the many examples in the literature of cases in which giving women’s access to resources does not lead to their greater control over resources, where changes in legal statutes have little influence on practice, and where female political leaders do not necessarily work to promote women’s interests. Thus while resources—economic, social and political--are often critical in ensuring that women are empowered, they are not always sufficient. Without women’s individual or collective ability to recognize and utilize resources in their own interests, resources cannot bring about empowerment. Having argued that “agency” should be treated as the essence of empowerment, and resources and achievements as enabling conditions and outcomes, respectively, another caveat is necessary. While distinctions such as those between “resources, agency and achievements” (Kabeer 2001) or “sources versus evidence” of empowerment seem clear at the conceptual level, it is not always easy to completely separate them in developing empowerment indicators. And too, a given variable may function as an indicator of women’s access to resources (or an enabling factor) in one context, of women’s agency in another, and may represent an achievement in still other contexts. For example, microcredit programs and employment opportunities are often seen as resources for women’s empowerment. But if a woman seeks to gain access to microcredit, or to get a job, then getting the job or joining the credit program might be best characterized as a manifestation of women’s agency, and the benefits she draws as a result—income, discretionary spending, healthcare, etc--as achievements. In some analyses discussed in Section III, below, women’s economic contribution is treated as an enabling factor and used to predict other outcomes such as control over important decisions and even the outcomes of decisions such as family size or contraceptive use. But in other contexts women’s economic contribution would be more accurately described as a form of agency or, again even an achievement. Similarly, assets owned could function as sources of empowerment (e.g. Kishor 2000a) but they could also constitute evidence that empowerment had been achieved. The meaning of any empowerment indicator will always depend on its inter-relationships with other variables.
Empowerment is a dynamic process. Separating the process into components (such as enabling factors, agency and outcomes) may be useful in identifying policy interventions to support empowerment, and for evaluating the impact of such interventions, but it is important to realize that a framework for research or evaluation of a specific policy or intervention will refer to only one phase of the process. Which phase it refers to will depend on the context, the interventions being assessed, and the outcomes of interest.