Women's Empowerment Scale

Scale Objective

To measure women's empowerment, defined as the ability to exercise agency and acquire resources within a context of gender inequality.

Type(s) of Behavior or Outcomes Predicted

Current contraceptive use

Types of Items Included

• Women's mobility
• Women's freedom from family domination
• Women's economic security and contribution to family support

Number of Items and Subscales

• 18 items
• 3 subscales

Women’s Mobility Subscale Items

• Have you ever been to the bazaar?
• Have you ever been there alone?
• Have you ever been to the hospital/clinic/doctor?
• Have you ever gone there alone?
• Have you ever gone to the cinema?
• Have you ever gone there alone?
• Have you ever gone outside the village?
• Have you ever gone there alone?

Scoring Procedures

Each respondent was given 1 point for each place she had visited and an additional point if she had ever gone there alone. The scale ranged from 0 to 8 and was employed as a continuous variable.

Freedom from Family Domination Subscale Items

Have any of the following happened to you in the past 12 months?

• Husband/other family member took your money when you didn't want him to.
• Husband/other family member took your land/jewelry/poultry/livestock when you didn't want him to.
• Husband/other family member prevented you from visiting your parents.
• Husband/other family member prevented you from working outside the home.

Scoring Procedures

A woman was classified as "empowered" and coded as 1 if she said that none of these things had happened to her. The category "not empowered," was coded as 0.

Economic Security and Contribution Subscale Items

• Do you, in your own name, own any land, your homestead land, or your house?
• Do you yourself own any productive assets (for example, cattle or sewing machine)?
• Do you have any cash savings?
• Have you ever used your savings for business or money-lending?
• Of your total household expenses, what proportion is met through your own earnings?

Scoring Procedures

• Two variables were used in an earlier analysis. Economic security was based on a scale from 0 to 4. One point was assigned for each of the following: if a woman owned her house or homestead land; owned any productive asset; had her own cash savings; and her savings were ever used for business or money-lending. A woman with a score of 2 or better was classified as empowered. Contribution to family support measured whether the respondent said she provided all, most, half, or some of her family's support, as opposed to very little or none.
• Because preliminary analyses indicated that economic security and contribution to family support were closely related, the two variables were combined into one. Women were coded as 1 if they had positive scores on economic security, contribution to family support, or both. Women who did not have positive scores on either variable were coded as 0. Several combinations of dummy variables were tried, but these variables worked as well or better than several more complex configurations.

Psychometrics Used in Scale Construction

None

Type(s) of Statistics Used to Test Predictive Validity

Logistic regression

Used with Women

Yes

Used with Men

No

Countries

Bangladesh

Additional Information

The construction of the scale was based on a literature review; ethnographic interviews and observation; and interviews with staff of credit programs, women's groups, and NGOs. Mobility, the first subscale, intends to tap into women's agency, while the second subscale, women's freedom from family domination, more accurately represents a lack of agency or ability to exercise agency. The third subscale, women's economic security, is meant to tap into two related aspects of empowerment: women's resources and their capacities. These scales are intended to be culture-specific. Specific items in each of them should be reviewed and adapted before attempting to use them in a new setting.

Downloads:

• Women's Empowerment Scale (PDF )
• DOWNLOAD ENTIRE COMPENDIUM (PDF )

Source(s):

• Schuler, SR, SM Hashemi, and AP Riley. 1997. The influence of changing roles and status in Bangladesh's fertility transition: Evidence from a study of credit programs and contraceptive use. World Development, 25(4): 563–75.