Introduction
The WHO’s recent report on the prevalence of violence against women using data from 2000 to 2018 across 161 countries and areas yielded alarming statistics testifying to the geographically widespread nature of gender-based violence (GBV). It is estimated that 26% of ever-married or partnered women aged 15 years and older had been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence from a current or former male intimate partner at least once during their lifetime. This statistic represents up to 753 million women. The lifetime prevalence of GBV is highest among the ‘Least Developed Countries’ (37%), and in the subregions of Oceania: Melanesia (51%), Micronesia (41%) and Polynesia (39%). The regions of Southern Asia (35%) and Sub-Saharan Africa (33%) have the next highest prevalence. Concerningly, 19 WHO member states fell within the highest range (40-53%) for lifetime experience of physical and/or sexual violence. Furthermore, the WHO acknowledges that all surveys will underestimate the true prevalence of GBV as there will always be women who cannot disclose their experiences.
Given the widespread prevalence of violence directed predominantly at women, it is useful to consider the relationship between GBV and women’s economic empowerment. Economic theory predicts that increasing a woman’s access to resources through income-generating activities enables her to negotiate for more favourable conditions within her relationship vis-a-vis her husband. This might include the ability to refuse sexual relations, and freedom from emotional, physical and sexual violence. The United Nations recommended economic empowerment of women as a protective factor against GBV in the Beijing Declaration adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995. However, as this piece will show, economic empowerment does not always, or often, guard against violence directed against women. Instead, the introduction of initiatives intended to promote women’s economic empowerment can, at least in the short-term, increase a woman’s exposure to GBV. Therefore practitioners, national governments and healthcare systems must be aware of such risks and seek to mitigate their impact when initiatives are first introduced.
A note on terminology
The terms ‘gender-based violence’ (GBV) and ‘intimate partner violence’ (IPV) convey similar concepts, but there are important distinctions between them. The United Nations defines GBV as ‘any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women…whether occuring in public or private life’. IPV differs from GBV in that it can occur between partners of the same gender identity. This article will use the term GBV, since the studies and evidence consulted revolve around women in heterosexual relationships; however, the author acknowledges that victims of violence can be of any gender, and violence can be perpetrated by any gender. Furthermore, this article seeks to understand GBV within monogamous relationships, although it is certainly also prevalent within polygamous and intergenerational households.
Gender equality in historical perspective
The United Nations has sought to promote gender equality since its founding, beginning with the promotion of women’s political, economic, social and educational rights in 1946, enshrined in the ECOSOC resolution 11(II). The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1979 set up a national plan of action to end discrimination against women by acknowledging how this ‘violates the principles of equality of rights and respect for human dignity’. It also required states to introduce legislation to ensure the full development and advancement of women. Later, the 1994 Programme of Action from the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) emphasised the importance of empowerment of women as well as reproductive health and rights as key parts of achieving gender equality. This was bolstered by the 1995 Beijing Declaration that saw 189 countries adopt commitments under 12 critical areas of concern for women, including violence against women and their role in the economy.
To mark the start of the 21st century, one of the Millenium Development Goals was dedicated to promoting gender equality and empowerment of women, with a focus on girls’ education. 2015 saw the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals, where Goal 5 seeks to target violence against women and girls as well as eliminate child marriage. Furthermore, in 2016 a global plan of action to strengthen the role of healthcare systems to address GBV was passed in World Health Assembly resolution 69.5, which marks significant progress as this encourages countries to adopt a national multisectoral response to this difficult issue. Furthermore, in the past decade, child marriage has declined significantly by 15% between 2010-20. However, as the statistics highlighted at the start of this article show, there is much progress to be made in the elimination of violence against women and girls.
What is women’s economic empowerment?
Oxfam states that effective economic empowerment for women occurs when women enjoy the rights to control and benefit from resources, assets, income, and time, and when they can manage risk and improve their economic status and wellbeing. However, Oxfam argues, for this to occur, women must also have autonomy and self-belief to make changes in their own lives without the influence of their partner, whilst enjoying equal gender rights and freedom from violence. Furthermore, women’s empowerment is shown to contribute to advancing economies and sustainable development - in short, everybody benefits from gender equality.
Women’s economic empowerment initiatives focus on women’s ability to access and control productive resources and become fully participating economic actors, while also working towards achieving political, economic and social rights for women. Such initiatives are typically implemented by states, NGOs and philanthropic bodies and can include but are not limited to enterprise and markets programmes, savings programmes, enterprise development programmes, networking programmes and microfinance initiatives.
The argument for women’s economic empowerment programmes
Proponents of women’s economic empowerment initiatives propose that a woman’s employment outside the home generates more economic resources for her. This has the potential to mitigate the impact of GBV, as a woman’s access to income independently from her husband can make leaving an abusive relationship more financially possible. Furthermore, women’s economic empowerment gives women access to the public sphere in markets, communities, and workplaces, making them more visible to the public eye.
Education and economic empowerment often go hand in hand due to the link between educational qualifications and paid employment. Evidence from a study in Ecuador shows that employed women with six or more years of schooling experience less emotional violence and spousal control compared to those with less years of schooling. This may be because women with secondary or higher education may experience less societal constraints and avoid economic or familial pressure to enter into an abusive marriage, or because women with higher education levels may be more valued by their partner or seem to have stronger bargaining power within their relationship. Importantly, results suggest that women face increased protection when both women and their partners have completed secondary education, which confirms the importance of promoting equal access to education for boys and girls, and equal teaching on sexual health and consent. Therefore, education levels coupled with access to employment can be a protective factor against GBV.
Further evidence from a study carried out in India suggests that women who are engaged in income-generating employment are more likely to seek help from their family or friends than those who were non-working, suggesting that economic empowerment provides a protective factor against repeated GBV. A study on economic strengthening interventions in Burkina Faso sought to trial a package of livelihood intervention that included training in savings, livelihood planning and household management, using capital grants to sustain economic activities, and one-to-one mentoring programmes. The authors found that women who received such interventions reported greater financial autonomy from their husbands, improvements in their marital relations, and lower levels of emotional abuse than women who did not take part in the programme. However, this study simultaneously found that after a 12-month follow-up, there were no significant intervention effects on beliefs on gender equality, the division of labour and decision-making power within the home, or physical violence, suggesting further action is needed.
Another study conducted in Rwanda found that women who took part in local economic cooperatives agreed that their membership allowed them to participate more in household financial decision-making, improved their marital relationships, and gave them increased control over their sexual rights (such as turning down requests for sexual relations). Importantly, the women also reported that their participation gave them better access to land and property, which is paramount to achieving women’s economic equality as much land in sub-Saharan Africa is passed down hereditarily from fathers to sons or other male relations through pre-colonial customary laws, excluding many women from owning their own property outright. This study therefore found that membership of a cooperative, alongside public safety reforms, helped to reduce exposure to domestic violence among those women who took part.
A more nuanced picture: arguments against women’s economic empowerment programmes
While programmes aimed at strengthening women’s economic empowerment clearly have the potential to begin the process of changing structural gender hierarchies, a plethora of evidence shows that women’s economic emancipation and access to employment outside the home can lead to unintended consequences for their safety behind closed doors. Dalal’s 2011 study of women across all 29 states in India found that working women were more likely to be abused than non-working women, that women who earned more than their partners were victims of abuse more often than those who earnt less or equal, and that women who travelled away from home to work were more likely to be emotionally and physically abused by their partners. Similarly, Krishnan et al. (2010) found that women in India who recently entered the workforce were eight times more likely to experience domestic violence than unemployed women.
Furthermore, economic programmes that seek to improve women’s entrepreneurship, such as microenterprise initiatives, can be beneficial in improving couples’ relationships, however they may not succeed in actually improving economic outcomes of women nor reduce GBV. Another study in Côte d’Ivoire found that despite providing a savings program for women that led to a reduction in levels of acceptance of domestic violence, gender norms remained unchanged as participants still believed that women could not refuse sexual advances from their partner. This points to a need to understand in more depth the structural conditions behind empowerment interventions and increased GBV beyond access to the public sphere and independent income generation.
Lastly, many of these initiatives seeking to empower women economically failed to address the impact that entering the public sphere and wage-earning activity might have on their domestic care duties. One study in Ethiopia found that although a microfinancing programme helped to enable women to contribute to their household income, it perpetuated inequalities in the division of labour within the home. This was because women were still expected to perform traditional ‘feminine’ activities such as childcare and cooking, meaning that their entry into the workforce forced them to cut down on leisure time and sleeping, eventually leading them to suffer from fatigue and health problems. Another study in India found that over half the women surveyed felt unable to manage the pressures of employment and household work. The lack of consideration for the impact such initiatives might have on women’s unpaid care duties at home may help to explain why overall such initiatives alone cannot truly empower women.
The problem at hand
Why is this phenomenon occurring? Although economic empowerment initiatives are designed to provide women with resources and tools to better negotiate their power position in relation to their husbands and in society more widely - whether this be through helping them secure finance for income-generating activity or adequate sexual health education - such interventions have failed to enact long-lasting change. To understand this trend, practitioners must seek to understand the specific cultural context of the country where they seek to introduce their interventions. Also important is unpacking the explanations behind such behaviour exhibited by husbands and male partners, such as the role of traditional gender norms. Lastly, understanding the socioeconomic demographics of women survivors would also help to explain who might be more vulnerable to exposure to GBV, although evidence shows that this is not always clear-cut.
Some studies argue that the explanation behind why empowerment can actually harm women lies in how women’s access to employment threatens their partner’s masculinity. Historically, the idea that cisgender heterosexual men must be the breadwinner and provide for their families has been promoted by the societal system of patriarchy which describes a ‘social system in which power is held by men, through cultural norms and customs that favor men and withhold opportunity from women’. This causes many men to conform to such gendered norms whether they strongly believe in them or are merely subconsciously operating within such an environment. Households suffering from poverty or low income levels are associated with higher levels of domestic violence by male partners. Studies have argued that husbands having difficulty finding and maintaining a job are more likely to exert violence since they cannot fulfil traditional gender roles. In India, women whose husbands newly had difficulty with employment had 1.7 times the odds of violence than those women with husbands in stable employment. The WHO has also found that problematic alcohol use is consistently and strongly associated with GBV, and that the risk of excessive drinking increases with the number of job losses and length of unemployment, serving as double risk for women.
Similarly, when a woman is the sole owner of her business, rather than co-owning with her husband or being dependent on him for income, her husband has less direct control over her income and is therefore confronted with non-traditional gender roles that may run counter to existing gender hierarchies, which makes her a more likely target of domestic violence. Overall, the employment statuses of women and their partners may conflict with traditional patriarchal values and norms held in many societies that relegate women to the home to keep them dependent on their husbands, as the husbands seek to reaffirm their power within the household. A rapid change in traditional gender roles can lead to a backlash, including violence against women, as men face social disapproval and feelings of inadequacy and frustration.
Recommendations
It is clear that women’s economic empowerment is not the magic bullet against gender-based violence that it is sometimes made out to be. Evidence suggests a U-shaped relationship, in that a degree of economic participation does not allow women to be sufficiently empowered and is associated with a higher risk of violence. This risk is not overcome until women are empowered to a sufficient level where they are able to become truly emancipated. Therefore, in this transitional period, policymakers must be wary of unintended consequences and tailor their programmes to mitigate possible increases of GBV.
The bulk of evidence suggests that economic empowerment can be a protective factor against GBV, but that it is not sufficient alone to protect women: instead, it must be coupled with public health and education programmes from governments as well as legal protection from national judiciaries. Ultimately, the WHO’s 2011 report accurately argues that what constitutes empowerment in one setting may represent an unacceptable transgression of gender norms in another, meaning that women’s economic empowerment initiatives must be designed with local contexts in mind.
For women’s economic empowerment initiatives to succeed, a number of factors must be considered. Firstly, as contexts vary between and within regions and countries, macrosystemic factors such as existing social norms, legal protections and social acceptability of violence against women and girls must be addressed. For practitioners engaged in women’s economic empowerment initiatives to succeed in their aims, the sociocultural contexts of women must be analysed prior to intervention, and local women must be involved in this process as their lived experiences and oral histories are vital to understanding gender roles within their country and how women respond to violence. This factor is particularly important in the context of the U-shaped relationship, as policymakers will have to mitigate the unintended consequences of the initial stage of women’s economic empowerment in order to help prevent them from violence.
Secondly, it appears likely that it is not enough to involve women only in such interventions in order to facilitate their empowerment. As men hold the majority of power in institutions such as governments, security services, judicial systems, and in daily life in many societies, their contributions and support are vital to the success of women’s empowerment initiatives. By promoting dialogue between male and female partners, this should reduce risks of exposure to violence for women enrolling in such programs. Evidence from a study in Côte D’Ivoire suggested that incorporating men into initiatives made them more aware of the importance of such programmes, and also led them to believe that their marital relationships and financial planning within the home had improved. It is essential that these programmes do not validate masculinities that harm the wellbeing of women, and instead seek to foster healthy and equal relationships between partners. Seeking to involve men and educate them on the harmful effects of GBV on their wives and female partners may help to mitigate the initial backlash they might feel when their partners first become economically empowered.
Thirdly, and significantly, such initiatives must be conducted with support from multiple sectors in society. By involving those specialised in gender issues and violence, those with socio-legal expertise, and those with political and productive power to change social policy, intersectoral collaboration is more likely to facilitate success. An enabling institutional environment is essential to reducing gender-based violence: economic empowerment initiatives will not succeed alone. Institutions must also take responsibility for seeking to mitigate the initial increased GBV amongst empowered women before the reach the required threshold to be free from violence, such as through introducing legislation to make violence against women a criminal offence.
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