Measuring Women’s Economic Empowerment
The network’s second event focused on overcoming the challenges of measuring women’s economic empowerment. Women’s economic empowerment is a complex, multidimensional process that spans across access to resources, agency in decision-making, and the resulting life outcomes. Measurement often includes labour market participation, financial inclusion, and control over resources. However, these indicators can vary across contexts, as factors like social norms, household dynamics, and access to economic opportunities play a critical role in shaping women’s empowerment.
Interventions may impact relevant outcomes in different directions. For example, research has shown that while women’s earnings may increase, they may not always gain control over how resources are used. Similarly, while women may gain control over resources, the value of resources accessible to them may remain the same or even decrease.

One example of the measurement challenge is measuring labour market participation, something that is complicated by time frames, seasonality, and the types of work women engage in, which may not be adequately captured by standard survey questions. Similarly, income measurement is difficult due to issues like recall bias, seasonality in earnings, and misreporting, as women may underreport their income to avoid taxes or appear poorer in some cases.
Enabling women to effectively access and use financial services and to engage in intra-household decision-making also present unique challenges. Simply accessing a loan in microfinance does not guarantee that women control their finances, as seen in contexts like Bangladesh, where women are often used by men to access loans but lack control over how the funds are spent. Measuring decision-making power within households is equally tricky, as “joint decision-making” can mean different things in different cultures, and self-reported data can be influenced by social desirability bias or program activities that skew responses. These issues highlight the complexity of accurately assessing economic empowerment through commonly measured dimensions.

The next event will focus on engaging men and boys in women’s economic empowerment and will be held on 14 November 2024. You can attend the event and become part of the network, with future plans being considered to create hybrid events to facilitate create a wider network with participants from around the world.
The Women’s Economic Empowerment Network, led by the Development Learning Lab (DLL), is working to build a collaborative platform dedicated to advancing gender equality and economic opportunities for women. This initiative seeks to promote knowledge sharing and action, with key topics for future meetings including the involvement of men and boys in WEE efforts, evaluating the cost-effectiveness of interventions, and examining both the intended and unintended impacts of these programs.
By building this network, DLL aims to foster a collective effort toward advancing women’s economic empowerment and addressing the remaining disparities in a meaningful and measurable way.