Drivers of women's empowerment: the role of macroeconomic conditions and micro interventions

Women in developing and developed countries spend more of their time working, but
have lower rates of labour force participation. This means they have fewer opportunities,
and less autonomy (Jayachandran, 2019). External shocks as well as specific policies can
interact with labour markets and social norms to affect women's empowerment. Oxfam's
ambition for Women's Economic Empowerment is to change economic systems so that
women have control over income and assets, choice over their time and labour and
decent paid work, without harassment or violence. Governments and NGOs such as
Oxfam have created specific interventions to improve women's empowerment, and Oxfam has recently invested heavily in how to measure empowerment (Lombardini et al,
2017).
Macroeconomic conditions affect demand for labour, and sectoral differences in skill
requirements mean external factors can also interact with social norms and household
factors to change gender relations within the labour force e.g. employment rates and
relative wages (Gaddis and Pieters, 2017). This project will contribute to two of Oxfam's
Strategic Evidence Framework thematic areas: Livelihoods (income and wealth) and
Women's Empowerment. The student will produce three papers during the project, two of
which will examine macroeconomic factors that affect women's empowerment and
livelihoods and contribute to the evaluation of an Oxfam project.