Women empowerment in Pakistan: Assessing the socio-economic determinants

Abstract

The present study is an effort to explore the important factors that contributes to the women empowerment in Pakistan, with an obtained the objective this study classifies the women empowerment into economic and social empowerment. For this purpose, the data is collected from the Pakistan Demographic Health Survey (PDHS) for the year 2017-18. The sample of the study is 10,935 married women and the current research utilizes multiple regression analysis for empirical analysis. The results of the regression analysis show that women education, women occupation, wealth index and men occupation have a positive and statistically significant effect on women empowerment, whereas women age and residence have a positive and insignificant effect on women social and economic empowerment. From the result, we found that educated and self-reliant working women are more empowered, and she can play important role in decision making process vis-à-vis to support household level. In sum, women participation in a decision at household is important, as women can smoothly manage domestic chores more confidently.