Does women's economic empowerment have an impact on human development in low- and middle-income countries? A Systematic Review

Pooja Balasubramanian, Marcela Ibanez Diaz, Sarah Khan and Soham Sahoo

This paper investigates how women's economic empowerment interventions have affected human development in low- and middle-income countries. We use a meta-regression analysis to consider the following dimensions of human development: income and wealth, education, health, and community development. After an extensive search of academic and policy-focused databases and screening of 2998 titles and abstracts of published studies and working papers, 48 studies on female economic empowerment were selected and included in the analysis. We find programs that promote female economic empowerment lead to a modest but significant positive effect on employment, income, assets, school attendance, and expenditures in health but have no significant impact on community development. Regarding the pathways by which women's economic empowerment leads to human development, there are positive effects on income security (i.e., beneficiaries are more likely insured) and consumption expenditures. However, there are no significant effects on intra-household bargaining power or fertility. Our findings show economic empowerment to be associated with worse outcomes for women in terms of health compared with other household members, providing evidence of a triple burden of work for women.