Indicators for gender equality and the empowerment of women: from concept to practice

As part of the project “Developing Gender
Indicators in Agriculture,” we conducted a literature
review in order to understand how research and
agricultural development projects in Latin America
measure women’s empowerment and gender
inequalities. The research allowed us to conduct
a close examination of the theoretical concepts
and the methodologies employed, and the way in
which both of these are linked, in practice. In the
study, we uncovered similarities in the theoretical
definitions of women’s empowerment and gender
inequality used, but differences in the way in which
each study operationalizes these concepts. These
different operationalizations were found in turn to
be connected with the methodological approaches
that guided each research study or program.
We also found discrepancies in the theoretical
frameworks used and the results presented,
with many of the reviewed studies basing
their theoretical frameworks on the concept of
empowerment, but framing their results in terms of
reaching or benefiting women, but not necessarily
in terms of women’s empowerment.