Economic Empowerment of Women

“About 52% of the world’s population is female. But most of the positions of power and prestige are occupied by men. The late Kenyan Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai put it simply and well when she said ‘The higher you go, the fewer women there are’” (10 Things Chinamanda Ngozi). Why, in modernity, do many countries in the world classify men as superior to women? Physical strength? This made sense a thousand years ago, when the “survival of the fittest” norm was commonplace. The strongest were the ones most likely to lead. However, now, the one more likely to lead is not the strongest one, but the creative, ingenious one. This gives more economic opportunity to women who otherwise would have been abandoned as society’s refuse. When women take an active role in economic affairs, an overall reduction of poverty, hunger, and unemployment ensues. Historically, however, women remain disproportionately affected by poverty, sexual discrimination, and unjust exploitation. Many issues plague women in developing countries from becoming economically empowered. However, for every issue a poor woman faces, there are solutions.

A huge obstacle affecting women in many countries is legal impediments involving property and land possession. There is a growing interest among women to become financially stable, and one of the best ways to achieve this is to become an entrepreneur or own land. Bill Clinton famously said, “Women perform 66 percent of the world’s work and produce 50 percent of the food, yet only earn 10 percent of the income and 1% of the property” (Corporations, NGOs, and Foundations). Compared to men, women have weaker property and land-ownership rights. Many statutory and customary land tenure structures hamper prospective fema...

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...ria did most effective toward augmenting women empowerment was implementing a three year UNDP-funded project to advocate the economic empowerment of women and job creation. The establishment of the business support center contributed to the creation of 160 new jobs, 131 of which were taken by women. “The centre provided free vocational training and retraining programmes on topics that included tourism development, English language and computer skills. Of the 374 persons trained, 263 were women. A loan guarantee scheme was also established to facilitate women- or family-owned businesses accessing commercial credit from banks” (Eliminating gender-based discrimination). In final analysis, although Bulgaria has taken great strides to close the economic gap between the sexes, the work is not completed, and there is still much more to be done to empower female Bulgarians.