Naila Kabeer

Resources, Agency, Achievements: Reflections on the Measurement of Women's Empowerment

This paper evaluates the measurement of womens empowerment in the context of three interrelated dimensions: resources agency and achievements. Several studies are analyzed to stress important methodological points. Resources is here understood to refer not only to material resources but also to the various human and social resources which enhance the ability to exercise choice. Individual and structural change are interdependent in processes of empowerment. The idea of choice must be qualified so that it incorporates the structural dimensions of individual choice according to two criteria: the criterion of alternatives relates to the structural conditions under which choices are made while the criterion of consequences relates to the extent to which choices made have the potential for transforming structural conditions. By definition indicators of empowerment cannot provide an accurate measurement of changes in womens ability to make choices; they can merely indicate the direction and meaning of change. Finally there are problems in measurement and conceptualization associated with capturing particular kinds of social change. Thus giving women access to credit creating constitutional provisions for political participation or equalizing educational opportunities is unlikely to empower them automatically; instead it will create a vantage point from which to view alternatives; this in turn constitutes the precondition for the establishment of a more transformatory consciousness.

Conflicts over credit: re-evaluating the empowerment potential of loans to women in rural Bangladesh

This paper explores the reasons why recent evaluations of the empowerment potential of credit programs for rural women in Bangladesh have arrived at very conflicting conclusions. Although these evaluations use somewhat different methodologies and have been carried out at different points of time, the paper argues that the primary source of the conflict lies in the very different understandings of intrahousehold power relations which these studies draw on. It supports this argument through a comparative analysis with the findings of a participatory evaluation of a rather different credit program in Bangladesh in which the impact of loans was evaluated by women loanees themselves.

Gender equality and women's empowerment: a critical analysis of the third Millennium Development Goal

This article discusses the third Millennium Development Goal (MDG), on gender equality and womens empowerment. It explores the concept of womens empowerment and highlights ways in which the indicators associated with this Goal – on education, employment, and political participation – can contribute to it.

Women, Wages and Intra-household Power Relations in Urban Bangladesh

This article discusses with examples from women working in the export-oriented garment industry the implications for kinship relations within the household of womens access to income-earning opportunities in Bangladesh. The question is whether decision making is consensual or conflictual and whether the absence of conflict in decision making signifies the absence of power within the household or its suppression. Interviews were conducted among 60 women engaged in 12 new export-oriented garment factories in Dhaka during 1988-89. The author analyzed whether womens earning capacity was a necessary sufficient or irrelevant factor in household gender relations. The interviews with women serve to bridge the gap between proposed theories and empirical evidence and to inform about power relations. Amatya Sen (1990) proposes that bargaining power is related to market exchange or subsistence consumption the form of payment (cash or kind) and location (outside the household or inside) and not to the value of productive contributions. Sens notion is also related to the threat of use of violence and to the perceived best interests in subordinating their personal well-being to that of others. Recent sociological literature about intra-household relations recognizes inequalities in power but there is disagreement about the role of womens earnings in affecting power relations. Economic studies focus on power as decision making. It is concluded from the interviews that womens wage employment changed their lives. There were changes in labor markets living arrangements marriage and migration. Individual women used the opportunities to secure a more central place within family relations to provide better for their children buy what they wanted renegotiate relationships and leave situations. Factory wages helped to give women a context for creating more choices.

Globalization, labor standards, and women's rights: dilemmas of collective (in)action in an interdependent world

This paper challenges the idea that a “social clause” to enforce global labor standards through international trade agreements serves the interests of women export workers in poor countries. Drawing on fieldwork in Bangladesh and empirical studies, the author argues that exploitative as these jobs appear to Western reformers, for many women workers in the South they represent genuine opportunities. Clearly, these women would wish to better their working conditions; yet having no social safety net, and knowing that jobs in the informal economy, their only alternative, offer far worse prospects, women cannot fight for better conditions. Moreover, global efforts to enforce labor standards through trade sanctions may lead to declining employment or to the transfer of jobs to the informal economy. Lacking measures that also address the conditions of workers in this informal economy, demands for “the social clause” will reinforce, and may exacerbate, social inequalities in the labor market.

Snakes, Ladders and Traps: Changing Lives and Livelihoods in Rural Bangladesh (1994-2001)

This paper examines national-level explanations for poverty decline in Bangladesh in micro-level detail, in order to better understand the nature of the causalities at work and why some households have gained, while others have failed to gain, in the processes of change involved. The analysis is based on empirical data on the lives and livelihoods of rural households in two locations: Chandina thana in Comilla district and Modhupur thana in Tangail district. The data is drawn from panel data on 1184 household in 1994 and 2001, and qualitative data collected by the author at various points during the period covered by the study. The paper demonstrates that the distribution of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ is not determined purely by chance; it also reflects differences in endowments and efforts.

Safety Nets and Opportunity Ladders: Addressing Vulnerability and Enhancing Productivity in South Asia

As patterns of poverty and vulnerability in South Asia change, households have to balance immediate needs and long–term goals. For the poor, these choices, and the costs of precautionary measures, are particularly acute and call for suitable government policies. While policy–makers face a number of trade–offs between promotion, prevention and protection goals, careful design can maximise the potential to reconcile these objectives. A review of experience suggests a number of lessons regarding the relative benefits of targeted and universal programmes; the need to differentiate microfinance products for different groups amongst the poor; ways of basing the self–targeting of public works on rights rather than stigma; and the influence of political processes (such as decentralisation) for the overall effectiveness of social protection.

Gender and International Migration: Globalization, Development, and Governance

Abstract This contribution examines the connections between gender and international migration around three themes: globalization, national economic development, and governance. First, it discusses the connections between globalization and the multiplicity of processes that have contributed to international migration and its feminization, arguing that gender awareness is crucial to understanding these processes. Gender analysis makes visible the increasing commodification of care work on a global scale and highlights how the organization of families is changing. Second, it analyzes the various avenues through which migration may contribute to or hinder economic development, highlighting why remittances, in particular by women, have featured very positively in the migration and development policy discourse. Third, it discusses how issues of citizenship affect the migrant population, showing how gender analysis highlights many challenges with regard to nation-based notions of citizenship, particularly in the receiving countries.

Cultural dopes or rational fools? Women and labour supply in the Bangladesh garment industry

This article examines som e of the processes underlying the massive recent influx of womenworkers into export-oriented garment factorie s in Bangladesh.Bangladeshhaslongbeencharacterised asanunderdeveloped economy, where Islam operates in a conservative fashion, particularly in determining permissible modes of behaviour for women. Sociallysanctioned norms of purdah (female seclusion) hav e enforced womens absence from publicemployment for mostofitsknownhistory.Yetwithin arelativelyshortspaceoftime,severalthousand sofwomenhaveentereda highlyvisible form ofemployment infactory production.The explanation of this phenomenon can be undertaken at a number of levels and the broader contexts are dealt with very briefly in the following section. However,themainsubstanceofthisarticleisbasedonthe self-explanations offered bywomenworkersthemselvesoftheir labour supplybehaviour. It drawsonmaterial from semi-structured, informal interviewsconducted in

The gender dimensions of the globalization of production

Deals with the impact of economic globalization on female employment and considers new areas of paid employment opened up for women.