Specialization in labor-intensive export crops, such as organic cocoa, can exacerbate gender inequality if production and revenues fall under men's control and the additional labor burden falls on women. However, evidence on the implications for women's empowerment in value chains that combine...

In poor countries, the interaction of early marriage, early motherhood, and low educational attainment disempowers women and limits their life opportunities. Even as countries grow richer, gender inequality is often sustained by social norms, thereby limiting welfare gains from women's...

This study examines the five-year impacts of a bicycle distribution program for adolescent girls in rural Zambia, implemented across 91 schools as part of a randomized controlled trial. While the program increased girls’ self-reported empowerment and reduced experiences of domestic and...

Pakistan faces significant gender gaps in wage employment, entrepreneurship, and access to productive assets. Women in Pakistan also contend with critical issues related to safety, mobility, agency, and restrictive social norms. This report provides an in-depth analysis of these disparities and...

This study examines the five-year impacts of a bicycle distribution program for adolescent girls in rural Zambia, implemented across 91 schools as part of a randomized controlled trial. While the program increased girls' self-reported empowerment and reduced experiences of domestic and intimate...

This study investigates the determinants of women empowerment among refugee women living in Nairobi, Kenya. First, the study constructs an index to examine empowerment drivers using data from the Refugee and Host Household Survey (RHHS) 2021. A fractional logit regression model was employed in...

The study investigates how microfnance interventions and the entrepreneurial engagement of Self-Help Group (SHGs) members impact women's social and economic empowerment in rural communities. The study employs a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative data analysis and qualitative insights...

Domestic violence is a global phenomenon. We study the interplay of determinants of a woman's risk of facing intimate partner violence (IPV) for the case of India-using information from up to 235 thousand female survey respondents and exploiting state-level variation in institutions, law...

The inclusion of women into the financial system promotes economic development. However, in Nigeria, women face disproportionate financial exclusion. The main purpose of this study was to examine the role of financial inclusion in women's economic empowerment within the Nigerian context....

Domestic violence against women is a pervasive public health problem in all countries regardless of cultural, economic, and political background. Yet, the prevalence of domestic violence is very high in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, I examine the effect of women's employment on domestic...

Autocrats often control social organizations to disseminate their ideology. We examine the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile (1973-1990), where conservative military forces controlled female social organizations to promote traditional roles for women as mothers and housewives. Partnering with...

Public spending on gender equality and women's empowerment is rising rapidly in many countries. However, the unintended consequences of women's empowerment is rarely measured and remains poorly understood. We study the impact of female empowerment programs on male backlash through a series of...

Discrimination against women in agricultural decision-making is a major threat to the empowerment of women in many developing countries where agriculture is not only the major source of livelihood, at times the only source of livelihood. It hampers their socio-economic status as well as the...

Sustainability standards promise not only to promote environmentally friendly production, but also to improve farmers' livelihoods by linking them to high-value markets. While there has been extensive research on how sustainability standards affect farmers' incomes, much less attention has been...