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Abstract
Empowering women and achieving gender equality are essential for development. Although there has been significant progress in gender equality and women's empowerment under the law globally, progress has been slow in developing countries. This study examines the effect of economic freedom on women's empowerment in 36 developing countries using data from 2000 to 2019. The results obtained through panel logistic regression with fixed effects indicate that developing countries can empower women and reduce gender disparities through increasing economic freedom. It is important for developing countries to implement policies that improve economic freedom.
JEL Codes: D63, 131, 043
Keywords: economic freedom; women empowerment; gender equality; developing economies
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I. Introduction
Empowering women and achieving gender equality are essential to attaining peace and stability. Although there has been significant progress in gender equality and women's empowerment under the law globally, progress has been slow in developing countries (Kim and Milano 2021). UN Women (2024) defines women's empowerment as "ensuring women can equally participate in and benefit from decent work and social protection; access markets and have control over resources, their own time, lives, and bodies; and increased voice, agency, and meaningful participation in economic decision-making at all levels from the household to international institutions" (p. 2).
Studies find that women are disempowered by certain social norms and traditions, legal and political barriers, and lack of economic or social protection (Chen et al. 2006; Doss 2013). Especially in developing countries with little economic freedom, women are less empowered. They are often abused, discriminated against, less educated, and burdened with unpaid family care, and they often require the approval of their spouses for employment and face restricted mobility and participation in certain professions (Jayachandran 2021; Le and Nguyen 2020; Beck-Peter and Wenzel 2020). Economic freedom is necessary to achieve women's empowerment in developing countries. Economic freedom is the ability of individuals to make their own decisions on what goods and services to produce and consume (De Haan et al. 2006). High levels of economic freedom could give women the same rights and opportunities as men and improve their well-being.
Fike (2018) finds that women living in countries that rank high in economic freedom earn much higher wages and have more stable jobs and...