Women Empowerment and Economic Development
Open accessAbstract
Women empowerment and economic development are closely related: in one direction, development alone can play a major role in driving down inequality between men and women; in the other direction, empowering women may benefit development. Does this imply that pushing just one of these two levers would set a virtuous circle in motion? This paper reviews the literature on both sides of the empowerment—development nexus, and argues that the interrelationships are probably too weak to be self-sustaining, and that continuous policy commitment to equality for its own sake may be needed to bring about equality between men and women. (JEL I14, I24, I32, I38, J13, J16, O15)
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Women's empowerment and economic development have a strong and potentially bi-directional relationship.
“Duflo (2012), who explains a strong and potentially bi-directional relationship between women's empowerment and economic development.”
From The Gender Wage Gap in Peru: Drivers, Evolution, and Heterogeneities (2022) · cites this paper as Duflo (2012)
Cites
The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women's Employment, Education, and Family
Goldin, C. (2006) · American Economic Review · doi:10.1257/000282806777212350 · Cited by 1,831 · see citing works
Powerful Women: Does Exposure Reduce Bias? <sup>*</sup>
Beaman, L., Chattopadhyay, R., Duflo, E., Pande, R., & Topalova, P. (2009) · Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.1162/qjec.2009.124.4.1497 · Cited by 1,060 · see citing works
Self-citationJayachandran, S., Lleras-Muney, A., & Smith, K. V. (2010) · American Economic Journal: Applied Economics · doi:10.1257/app.2.2.118 · Cited by 230 · see citing works
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Relationship of gender differences in preferences to economic development and gender equality
Falk, A., & Hermle, J. (2018) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aas9899 · Cited by 378 · see citing works
Women's Empowerment in Action: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial in Africa
Bandiera, O., Buehren, N., Burgess, R., Goldstein, M., Gulesci, S., Rasul, I., & Sulaiman, M. (2020) · American Economic Journal: Applied Economics · doi:10.1257/app.20170416 · Cited by 311 · see citing works
Parental education and inequalities in child mortality: a global systematic review and meta-analysis
Balaj, M., York, H. W., Sripada, K., Besnier, E., Vonen, H. D., Aravkin, A., Friedman, J., Griswold, M., Jensen, M. R., Mohammad, T., et al. (2021) · The Lancet · doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(21)00534-1 · Cited by 274 · see citing works
Jayachandran, S., Lleras-Muney, A., & Smith, K. V. (2010) · American Economic Journal: Applied Economics · doi:10.1257/app.2.2.118 · Cited by 230 · see citing works
Fertility restrictions and life cycle outcomes: evidence from the one-child policy in China
Huang, W., Lei, X., & Sun, A. (2021) · The Review of Economics and Statistics · doi:10.1162/rest_a_00921 · Cited by 106 · see citing works
Water as destiny—the long-term impacts of drought in sub-Saharan Africa
Hyland, M., & Russ, J. (2019) · World Development · doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.11.002 · Cited by 96 · see citing works
Measuring social performance in social enterprises: a global study of microfinance institutions
Beisland, L. A., Djan, K. O., Mersland, R., & Randøy, T. (2021) · Journal of Business Ethics · doi:10.1007/s10551-019-04417-z · Cited by 84 · see citing works
Synergies and Trade-Offs in Reaching the Sustainable Development Goals
Hegre, H., Petrova, K., & von Uexkull, N. (2020) · Sustainability · doi:10.3390/su12208729 · Cited by 82 · see citing works
How education empowers women in developing countries
Le, K., & Nguyen, M. (2021) · The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy · doi:10.1515/bejeap-2020-0046 · Cited by 74 · see citing works
Impact of a rural solar electrification project on the level and structure of women’s empowerment
Burney, J., Alaofè, H., Naylor, R., & Taren, D. (2017) · Environmental Research Letters · doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aa7f38 · Cited by 51 · see citing works
Women's access to education and its impact on their empowerment: a comprehensive review
Reshi, I. A., Sudha, D. T., & Dar, S. A. (2022) · MORFAI JOURNAL · doi:10.54443/morfai.v1i2.760 · Cited by 49 · see citing works
The challenges of geographical inclusive education in rural Bangladesh
Begum, H. A., Perveen, R., Chakma, E., Dewan, L., Afroze, R. S., & Tangen, D. (2019) · International Journal of Inclusive Education · doi:10.1080/13603116.2018.1514729 · Cited by 43 · see citing works
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Predictive analytics approach to evaluate wage inequality in engineering organizations
Jafari, A., Rouhanizadeh, B., Kermanshachi, S., & Murrieum, M. (2020) · Journal of Management in Engineering · doi:10.1061/(asce)me.1943-5479.0000841 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
The Gender Wage Gap in Peru: Drivers, Evolution, and Heterogeneities
Vaccaro, G., Basurto, M. P., Beltrán, A., & Montoya, M. (2022) · Social Inclusion · doi:10.17645/si.v10i1.4757 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
“These results are in line with Duflo (2012), who explains a strong and potentially bi‐directional relationship between women’s empowerment and economic development.”
ResultErdmann, M., Marques Hill, A., Helbig, M., & Leuze, K. (2023) · Frontiers in Sociology · doi:10.3389/fsoc.2023.1175651 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
A multilevel analysis of educational transition rates at secondary level in sub-Saharan Africa
Delprato, M., & Farieta, A. (2024) · Prospects · doi:10.1007/s11125-023-09644-x · Cited by 9 · see citing works
“Girls who have married early largely do not have control over their earnings, are isolated from support networks, and do not have any social help to sustain their emotional well-being (Duflo, 2012; Raru et al., 2022).”
Block, K., olsson, M. I. T., Schmader, T., van Laar, C., Martiny, S. E., Schuster, C., Van Grootel, S., Meeussen, L., & Croft, A. (2022) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/k6g5d · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Factors influencing Parish Revolving Fund lead time under Uganda's Parish Development Model
Nuwagaba, S. S., Mbowa, S., Nakkazi, S. C., & Nakabiri, S. (2026) · Development Policy Review · doi:10.1111/dpr.70089
- Authors
- Duflo, E.
- Affiliations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- Corresponding author
- Duflo, Esther
- ORCID
- Duflo, Esther
- Venue
- Journal of Economic Literature
- Publisher
- American Economic Association
- Published
- 2012-12-01
- Volume
- 50
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 1051-1079
- ISSN
- 0022-0515 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2038458296
- Cited by
- 2,978
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 293 · 2025: 336 · 2024: 341 · 2023: 279 · 2022: 286 · 2021: 287 · 2020: 275 · 2019: 188 · 2018: 177 · 2017: 157 · 2016: 95 · 2015: 98 · 2014: 95 · 2013: 52 · 2012: 12
- FWCI
- 200.32
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- papers.ssrn.com
- Locations
- Journal of Economic Literature (publishedVersion)
- SSRN Electronic Journal (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics
- Social Sciences › Education › Gender, Education, and Development Issues
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Income, Poverty, and Inequality
- Keywords
- women's empowerment, economic development, gender inequality, gender equality policy, women's economic participation
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