Women Empowerment Index for Africa: Measuring the Different Dimensions

Abstract The study measures the state of women empowerment in sub Saharan Africa. Various dimensions of women empowerment are analysed in terms of social, economic, psychological, legal and political. The Women Empowerment Index (WEI) is built through a combination of 37 indicators. Using data for 26 countries from 2008 to 2020, the Arithmetic Mean and the principal component analysis methodology is adopted to produce a joint indicator of women empowerment for sub Saharan Africa. Countries are classified into different categories of women empowerment that is into those having low, medium, and high WEI. The outcomes show that women in most sub-Saharan African countries face several issues across the four dimensions due to reduced assets available to them and the high level of poverty within the societies. The study extends on the existing conceptual framework of Asaolu et al. (2018) by considering additional dimensions such as the psychological, legal, and political spheres of empowerment. The results are in line with the Global Gender Gap index and covers more dimensions of women empowerment. The research comes forward with specific policies to promote women empowerment across African countries.