Discussion paper

DP8734 Women's Empowerment and Economic Development

Women?s 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 inter-relationships 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.

£6.00
Citation

Duflo, E (2012), ‘DP8734 Women's Empowerment and Economic Development‘, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 8734. CEPR Press, Paris & London. https://cepr.org/publications/dp8734