Dimensions and drivers of women’s empowerment in rural Nigeria Oluwakemi Adeola Obayelu and Amaka Christiana Chime Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria Abstract Purpose – The majority of poor women in Africa live in rural areas, and investigating their empowerment status and factors influencing their empowerment is therefore a tool for overcoming poverty. This paper investigated the dimensions and determinants of women’s empowerment in rural Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach –This studyuseddata from the 2013NigeriaDemographic andHealthSurvey (NDHS). Information on women’s agencies, resource, income, leadership and time/workload was used to construct women empowerment index (WEI). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and logit regression model. Findings – Most of the decisions were made by the women’s spouses, while decisions on how to spend her earnings were jointly made with her spouse. A majority of the women did not justify beating nor owned businesses. A larger percentage of rural women were disempowered thanmen; agency had the highest relative contribution to women’s disempowerment; and women in the northern zones of Nigeria were less empowered than their southern counterparts. Husband’s education and her age were inversely related to women’s empowerments while her education, household size and being the household head were directly related to it. Originality/value – There is a dearth of empirical studies on multidimensional women’s empowerment in rural Nigeria. This study therefore provides a clear understanding of drivers of women’s empowerment in rural Nigeria, and its findings are to serve as guiding documents for policymakers in designing gender-responsive interventions programs and implementation of a genuine gendermainstreaming in rural development policy in Nigeria. Further, the findingswould contribute to the growing body of knowledge, especially empirical studies, on women’s empowerment in Nigeria and the developing world. Peer review – The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ IJSE-07-2019-0455 Keywords Agency, Multidimensional empowerment, Gender parity, Rural Nigeria Paper type Research paper Introduction Women constitute roughly half of the global population and half of its work force. Although as a groupwomenwork as much asmen, if not more (both paid and unpaid work), they women in paid work earn 10–30 percent less than men (UNW, 2011; UN, 2015). Despite women’s hard work and contributions to global economy, women own only 1 percent of the total world assets (Al Mughairy, 2004). Limiting their ability thus impedes national and global economic growth (Hausmann et al., 2012). Women and girls represent half of the poor in developing regions and slightlymore than half in developed regions, while two-thirds ofwomen in developing areas are excluded from economic decision-making within their own households (UN, 2015). Although gender inequality in Sub-Saharan African is 15–20 percent, ensuring equal access to women to financial and development opportunities empowers them and accelerates gender equality and consequently leads to attainment of national and global sustainable development (Randriamaro, 2006; World bank, 2012; Sharma and Sanchita, 2017). The majority of poor women in Africa live in rural areas (APF, 2007). Women’s population inNigeria declinedmarginally from49.35 percent in 2015 to 49.31 in 2018 (NBS, 2015, 2018a, b). They women are less educated than men as the literacy rate was lower among young women (59.3 percent) than amongmen (70.9 percent) aged 15–24 years in 2016. The percentage of girls’ Empowerment of women 315 Authors are grateful to the National Population Commission, Abuja, Nigeria for providing the data for this study. The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/0306-8293.htm Received 22 July 2019 Revised 5 December 2019 3 January 2020 Accepted 7 January 2020 International Journal of Social Economics Vol. 47 No. 3, 2020 pp. 315-333 © Emerald Publishing Limited 0306-8293 DOI 10.1108/IJSE-07-2019-0455 UNIV ERSIT Y O F IB ADAN L IB RARY https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-07-2019-0455 https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-07-2019-0455 https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSE-07-2019-0455 enrollment in primary school decreased from 48.6 percent in 2014 to 47.4 and 47.5 percent in 2015 and 2016, respectively. However, the completion rates for girls in primary, junior secondary and senior secondary were 64.8 percent, 38.9 percent and 28.7 percent, respectively, in 2016. Female labor force participation rate in Nigeria rose from 39.0 percent in 1990 to 45.5 percent in 2018 (World Bank, 2019a). In Nigeria, 26.6 percent of women were employed in the agricultural sector, representing 60–79 percent of agricultural labor, especially for food production, processing and marketing (World Bank, 2019b; FAO–CPF, 2012–2017). Many of thesewomen own their farms and alsowork on family farms. They lack power to take decision and have control over asset; and their economic role continues to be inadequately recognized in the development of agricultural policies and programs (FAO/ECOWAS, 2018). Women’s empowerment is therefore a tool for overcoming poverty and disempowerment, especially in rural Nigeria where poverty is pervasive (Obayelu and Awoyemi, 2010; Okemakinde, 2014). Rural women in developing countries are mostly isolated and less empowered than their male counterparts, which shatters self-confidence and self-esteem (Quisumbing et al., 2014; Bushra and Wajiha, 2015). This gender gap affects income and intrahousehold distribution, with possible negative effects on household education, health and nutritional status in the households (Sraboni et al., 2014). However, reducing the effects of gender gaps on welfare outcomes is largely hinged on women having a voice in intrahousehold decision-making (Wouterse, 2016; Sell and Minot, 2018). Thus, there can be no meaningful dimension of empowerment if women do not actively have a voice in how resources are allocatedwithin the household (Peterman et al., 2011). Further, owning productive resources strengthens a woman’s bargaining position in the household (Meier zu Selhausen, 2016). For instance, low educational status has limited rural women in attaining equitable livelihood opportunities and decision-making capabilities (Bushra and Wajiha, 2015). In order to support women through appropriate policymeasures, it is essential to understand the dimensions and drivers of women’s empowerment (Manfre et al., 2013; Khan et al., 2010). Recent studies on multidimensional women’s empowerment in developing countries have used fewer dimensions of women’s empowerment and did not account for gender parity contribution to women’s empowerment (Khan, 2010; Ibrahim and Zalkuwi, 2014; Assad et al., 2014; Njega et al., 2015; Sharma and Sanchita, 2016; Ayevbuomwan et al., 2016; Akram, 2018). In Nigeria, Ibrahim and Zalkuwi (2014) identified determinants of women’s empowerment in the north-eastern part of Nigeria using two dimensions of women’s empowerment (women’s decision-making ability and women’s attitudes toward wife beating by husband/partner). However, Ayevbuomwan et al. (2016) used a four-dimension index to estimate headcount for women empowerment in rural Nigeria but did not account for gender parity contribution to women’s empowerment. These suggest a dearth of empirical studies on multidimensional women’s empowerment in Nigeria. This study provides a clear understanding of dimensions and drivers of women’s empowerment in rural Nigeria as well as the contribution of gender parity towomen’s empowerment. Recognizing thatwomen are often overrepresented among the rural poor (APF, 2007), the second of the sustainable development goal (SDG) therefore aims at increasing agricultural productivity and the incomes of small-scale food producers, particularly women. However, women and other disempowered groups require equal access to all forms of resources, legal protections, services and knowledge in order to achieve this goal. Only then can decent work for all (SDG8) be achieved and inequality within countries (SDG10) reduced. Further, the findings would contribute to the growing body of knowledge, especially empirical studies on women’s empowerment in developing countries. Multidimensional women’s empowerment and gender parity in rural Nigeria were therefore estimated in this study. Literature review Empowerment is a process of acquiring, providing, bestowing means and resources in order to change the distribution of control over the means and the resources in interpersonal IJSE 47,3 316 UNIV ERSIT Y O F IB ADAN L IB RARY relations and institutions throughout society, in order to change existing structures, which reproduce women’s subordinate position as a gender (Stromquist, 1988; Crawley, 1998). Moreover, Kabeer (2001) defined empowerment as “the process by which those who have been denied the ability to make strategic life choices acquire such ability.” Literature has developed a broad understanding of empowerment by breaking the process down into key components. Kabeer (1999) posited that the process of empowerment is the result of the interaction between resources, agency and achievements. Resources being the enabling factors that shape conditions under which choices are made and put into effect, while agency includes the ability to make strategic choices and to control resources and decisions that affect important life outcomes. Achievements are the outcomes of choices. Moreover, Malhotra et al. (2002) posited that empowerment is embedded by process of change and agency that differentiate it from the concept of “power.” The first element of “process” is suggestive of the fact that empowerment is an improved condition and it gives women social inclusion. Thus, being empowered is pivotal to having freedom to exercise control, choose without severe consequences and live one’s life as one deems fit (Sen, 1985; Kabeer, 1999; Akram, 2018). Thus, empowerment integrates resources (preconditions), agency (process) and achievements (outcomes) dimensions (Andrea, 2014). Women’s economic empowerment is the process of ensuring that women have equal access to and control over economic resources and guaranteeing autonomy in other aspects of their lives (Pereznieto and Taylor, 2014). The 13th section of the Beijing Declaration declared that “Women’s empowerment and their full participation on the basis of equality in all spheres of society, including participation in the decision-making process and access to power, are fundamental for the achievement of equality, development and peace.”This brings about a shift in the earlier unitary household-specific control of resource models to collective household models to allow for inequalities in decision-making power within the household, which translates into changes in power and hence changes in household resource allocation patterns (Kabeer, 1999; Walther, 2018). These models focus on the household members as the unit of analysis and permit them having different preferences and bargaining power. Bargaining power thus depends on the relative resources a female is able to control independently of other household members. The feminist theory perspectives are frequently used in addressingwomen empowerment. The theory asserted that the personal status of women is shaped by political, economic and social power relations and equitable access to all forms of power should be given to women (Turner and Maschi, 2014). Feminists viewed empowerment as a theoretical framework that helps people take more control over their lives (AlMaseb and Julia, 2007). They therefore motivated women to express themselves, build self-confidence and regain their personal, interpersonal and political power as much as possible in the society (Gutierrez, 1990; Lee, 2001; Abromovitz, 1992). For instance, the centrality of liberal feminist theory is the ideal state that respects all its citizens, thereby granting and protecting equal rights and equal opportunities for women and men (Friedan, 1963). Postmodern feminists (Frug, 1992; Butler, 1995) proposed that men and women may perform characteristics of either gender or even slide between gender identities. Empowerment has the cognitive, psychological, political and economic components. The cognitive component of women’s empowerment entails women’s knowledge and causes of their subordinate conditions, while the psychological component refers to the development of their feelings that women have to improve their condition aswell as the formation of the belief that they can succeed in their change efforts at both personal and societal levels (Stromquist, 1995). The political component of empowerment entails the ability to analyze the surrounding environment in political and social terms, while the economic component refers to the ability of women to occupy a productive activity that gives them some level of financial autonomy. Being empowered is not limited to only having choices but also to having freedom to exercise Empowerment of women 317 UNIV ERSIT Y O F IB ADAN L IB RARY them (Kabeer, 1999). This aspect is covered in the human agency that refers to liberty to choose without severe consequences. These two dimension reflects Sen’s (1985) idea of capabilities or “the potential that people have for living the lives they want.” It can be concluded that empowerment integrates three dimensions, that is, resources (preconditions), agency (process) and achievements (outcomes) (Andrea, 2014). In this regard, not only material resources, that is, money, land and so on but the other social and human resources, for example, skills, education, supports and so on also play an important part in enhancing the empowerment. Studies have identified socioeconomic factors that determine the level of empowerment of women. These include women’s level of education, age, education, household size, employment, income of the household, poverty status, access to productive assets (Assad et al., 2014; Khan, 2010; Sharma and Sanchita, 2016; Bushra andWajiha, 2015). Others include type of family, family headship, awareness about the rights, social networking, husband’s cooperation (Khan, 2010; Sell and Minot, 2018). The regional context was also found to explain Egyptian women’s empowerment (Assad et al., 2014). Methodology Data from the 2013 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) was used for the study. The DHS is a nationally representative household survey that provides data for a wide range of monitoring and impact evaluation indicators in the areas of population, health and nutrition (DHS Overview, 2015). The sample design for the 2013 NDHS provides estimates at the national level, urban–rural areas, for each of the six zones, for each of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). However, this study considered only the rural areas across the six zones of the country. For this study, the data was first stratified into rural and urban; and information from 13,313 rural women with consistent responses was used for the analyses. The data was further stratified into six geopolitical zones of the country for effective capturing of the determinant of women’s empowerment in the country. Information on women’s agencies, resource, income, leadership and time/workload was used to construct women empowerment index (WEI). The WEI comprises of the woman achievement ratio (WAR) also known as the five domains of empowerment (5DE) and the gender parity index (GPI). The five domains are agency, resources, time, leadership and income (Table AI) (The Hunger Project, 2014) The WEI tracks the progress of women’s achievements, as well as compares those to men’s achievements, over time. A higher value ofWEI indicates greater empowerment forwomen in that household. Empowerment is recognized in this study as a multidimensional process. That is, a woman may be empowered in one area or aspect of life but not in other(s) (Kishor, 2000). Therefore, one cannot assume that because an intervention promotes empowerment along a particular dimension, then empowerment in other dimensions must follow suit. Therefore, Alkire and Foster’s (2007) methodology (multidimensional cutoff and relative contribution of each domain approach to identify areas for policy interventions) was used in the study. The methodology includes two steps. First, an identification method (ρk) that identifies “who is empowered” by considering the range of dimensions in which they are empowered. Second, an aggregation method that generates an intuitive set of disempowerment measures (Mo) (based on traditional FGTmeasures) that can be broken down to target the most empowered and the dimensions in which this occurs. Following Alkire and Foster (2007), the vector c of disempowerment counts is compared against a cutoff k to identify the disempowered, where k 5 1. . .d. Hence, the identification method ρ is defined as ρk (yi;z) 5 1 whenever ci ≥ k, and ρk(yi;z) 5 0 whenever ci < k. Finally, the set of respondents who are multidimensional disempowered is defined as IJSE 47,3 318 UNIV ERSIT Y O F IB ADAN L IB RARY Zk5 {i: ρk(yi;z)}. In other words, the method identifies as disempowered any respondent who is disempowered inmore than k number of dimensions. Alkire and Foster (2007) referred to ρk as a dual cutoff method because it first applies the within dimension cutoff zj to determine who is disempowered in each dimension and then the across dimension cutoff k to determine the minimum number of achievements for a respondent to be considered multidimensional disempowered. The first measure to consider is the headcount ratio or the percentage of respondents that is disempowered. The headcount ratio H 5 H(y;z) is defined by: H ¼ q=n where q 5 q(y;z) is the number of respondent in the set Z k, as identified using ρk the dual cutoff method. Further, a headcount measure that was adjusted by the average number of achievements being experienced by the respondents. To this end, a censored vector of disempowerment counts c(k) is defined so that if ci ≥ k, then ci(k)5 ci; and if ci < k, then ci(k)5 0. This is to say that in c(k) the count of categories is always one for those respondents that are disempowered according to the ρk dual cutoff method. Then, ci(k)/d represents the shared possible dimensions experienced by a respondent, and hence, the average dimension shared across the disempowered is given by: A ¼ jcðk0qdÞ By focusing on the disempowered, the Alkire–Foster approach allows computing a final adjusted headcount ratio that satisfies the properties of decomposability and disempowerment focus. The (dimension) adjusted headcount ratio Mo (y;z) is given by: Mo ¼ HA Or simply the product of the headcount ratioH and the average disempowerment dimensions shared across A. The adjusted headcount ratio clearly satisfies dimensional monotonicity, since A rises when a rural respondent becomes disempowered in an additional dimension (Alkire and Foster, 2007). Further, using Alkire and Sabina et al. (2012) overall, WEI was estimated as: 5DE orWAR ¼ He þ Hd*Ae He 5 the percentage of empowered women; Hd 5 the percentage of disempowered women; Ae 5 the average absolute empowerment score among the disempowered. 5DE can also be expressed as Mo 5 Hp 3 Ap 5DE ¼ 1 –Mo where Mo 5 multidimensional disempowerment GPI ¼ 1–HGPi 3 IGPi HGPI 5 the percentage of gender-parity-inadequate households; IGPI5 the average empowerment gap between women andmen living in households that lack gender parity. WEI ¼ 0:6ð5DEÞ þ 0:4 GPI Empowerment of women 319 UNIV ERSIT Y O F IB ADAN L IB RARY Cross-tabulations and other descriptive statistics, tables, frequency, mean and percentage were used to profile women empowerment across socioeconomics characteristics of women in rural Nigeria. The logit regression model was used to identify the determinants of women empowerment. LogY ¼ log � PðY ¼ 1Þ 1� PðY ¼ 1Þ � ¼ β0 þ β1X1 þ β2X2 þ . . .þ βnXn þ ε where Xi are the explanatory variables. Y 5 women empowerment (empowered 5 1; 0 if otherwise) Xi 5 vector of explanatory variables (i5 1, 2, 3,. . ., n). The definitions of these variables are presented in Table AII. β0 5 intercept βi 5 regression coefficients of the ith explanatory variable (i 5 1, 2,3,. . ., n). ε5 error term n 5 nth variable If G is the specified binomial distribution, the marginal effect for a variable was therefore obtained by deducting the conditional predicted probability when all variables were held at their mean values from the same conditional predicted probability, except with the variable of interest increased by one unit ðXk þ 1Þ. This is presented in equation (1) as: dy dx ¼ G �bβ0 þ bβ1X 1 þ . . .þ bβkðXk þ 1 �þ . . .þ bβnXn � � G �bβ0 þ bβ1X 1 þ . . .þ bβkXk þ . . .þ bβnXn � (1) Results and discussion Dimensions of women’s empowerment in Nigeria In this section, to identify the areas that contribute most to women disempowerment, women’s disempowerment was decomposed by domain and indicators. Using the pooled result, it was seen that decisions on visit to community health facility were taken mostly by their spouses (62 percent), as well as purchase on large household purchase where the husbands (55 percent) largely make the decisions (Table I). These signify that the women had low autonomy in these indicators, and this is in contrast with the findings of Habtamu (2014) that women have a great role in households’ decision regarding their own health care and women’s involvement via large household purchases. With regard to women’s perception toward domestic violence, a majority of the rural women did not justify beating by spouse when they went out without telling their spouses (63 percent), neglected their own child (67 percent), argued with spouse (70), refused sex (72 percent) or if burnt food (74 percent). About 43 percent of the rural women operated business for someone else while 57 percent of them owned their businesses or ran it for family. More so, the respondents jointly made decisions on how their earnings were spent (79 percent); this is in conformity with the findings of Ayevbuomwan et al. (2016) that respondents did not have autonomy on how their earnings were spent. The highest proportion (72 percent) of the rural IJSE 47,3 320 UNIV ERSIT Y O F IB ADAN L IB RARY Indicators North central North east North west South east South south South west Pooled Agency/autonomy Decision on visit to community facility Jointly/alone 867(38) 937(37) 453(17) 410(24) 1,215(64) 1,226(54) 5,108(38) Husband/partner alone 1,427(62) 1,613(63) 2,192(83) 1,273(76) 675(36) 1,025(46) 8,205(62) Decision on large household purchase Jointly/alone 980(43) 785(31) 358(14) 1,304(77) 1,297(69) 1,289(57) 6,013(45) Husband/ partner alone 1,314(57) 1,765(69) 2,287(86) 379(23) 593(31) 962(43) 7,300(55) Perception on violence Beating is justified if wife goes out without telling husband Yes 900(39) 1,578(62) 818(31) 492(29) 640(34) 537(24) 4,965(37) No 1,394(61) 972(38) 1,827(69) 1,191(71) 1,250(66) 1,714(76) 8,348(63) Beating is justified if neglect children Yes 852(37) 1,297(51) 606(23) 435(26) 685(36) 568(25) 4,443(33) No 1,442(63) 1,253(49) 2,039(77) 1,248(74) 1,205(64) 1,683(75) 8,870(67) Beating is justified if argue with husband Yes 740(32) 1,218(48) 633(24) 439(26) 409(22) 546(24) 3,985(30) No 1,554(68) 1,332(52) 2,012(76) 1,244(74) 1,481(78) 1,705(76) 9,328(70) Beating is justified if refuse to have sex with husband Yes 659(29) 1,362(53) 730(28) 270(16) 374(20) 308(14) 3,703(28) No 1,635(71) 1,188(47) 1,915(72) 1,413(84) 1,516(80) 1,943(86) 9,610(72) Beating is justified if burn food Yes 517(23) 1,655(65) 530(20) 161(10) 323(17) 326(14) 3,512(26) No 1,777(77) 895(35) 2,115(80) 1,522(90) 1,567(83) 1,925(86) 9,801(74) Income/assets Self-employed/own business 836(36) 1,160(45) 1,664(63) 983(58) 1,254(66) 1,712(76) 7,609(57) Operating business for someone else 1,458(64) 1,390(55) 981(37) 700(42) 636(34) 539(24) 5,704(43) Decision on earnings Jointly/alone 1,802(79) 2,116(83) 2,384(90) 1,299(77) 1,620(86) 1,896(84) 11,117(84) Husband/partner alone 492(21) 434(17) 261(10) 384(23) 270(14) 355(16) 2,196(16) Own a house Don’t own 1,051(46) 2,400(94) 2,017(76) 1,175(70) 1,300(69) 1,700(76) 9,643(72) Jointly/alone 1,000(44) 84(3) 328(12) 508(30) 554(29) 476(21) 2,950(22) Husband/partner alone 243(11) 66(3) 300(11) 0(0) 36(2) 75(3) 720(5) Discuss family planning with health worker No 1,728(75) 1,472(58) 1,400(53) 1,248(74) 1,216(64) 969(43) 8,033(60) Yes 566(25) 1,078(42) 1,245(47) 435(26) 674(36) 1,282(57) 5,280(40) (continued ) Table I. Dimensions of women’s empowerment by geographical zones Empowerment of women 321 UNIV ERSIT Y O F IB ADAN L IB RARY women did not own a house, while 5 percent of the spouses owned house alone. Meanwhile most of the women could not single-handedly take decisions on family planning issues. This suggested that since a majority did not own house nor could discuss their health issues with health workers, they had no public voice on political, health, social or cultural issues. Majority of the women (65 percent) could not read at all, while 8 percent were able to read part of the sentence. This suggested most of the rural women in Nigeria had no formal education, which can lead to high level of disempowerment among them. However, most of the women went for prenatal visit in the hospital in the last 12 months, an implication that they sourced for medical aid than self-medication. Further, a majority of the women (81.0 percent) spent less than 30 min to get water, an implication of less work load thus promotes empowerment. On the contrary, a majority of the respondents used firewood or charcoal (91 percent) as cooking fuel, suggesting increased domestic drudgery and disempowerment in cooking facilities. Women’s empowerment indices The multidimensional WEI for all the women is obtained by aggregating across indicators and dimension. The first cutoff ascertained a woman’s achievement in a dimension/ indicator and a second cutoff (k) was set, and it is used to state the number of dimensions in which a woman has achieved to be considered multidimensionally disempowered. Disempowerment measures decreased with the increase in the level of K (Table II). This is consistent with the findings of various studies that have used the Alkire and Foster multidimensional process measure (Batana and Duclos, 2008; Gordon et al., 2003; Ayevbuomwan et al., 2016). Rural women incidence of disempowerment decreases as K increases. For instance, taking the headcount ratio Ho, 100 percent of rural women were disempowered when the sum of the weights of the cutoffs k experienced by the women equaled 1, compared to 98.9 percent for K 5 2. However, 34.1 percent and 9.9 percent of rural women are disempowered at K 5 4 and K 5 5, respectively. As well, the intensity of Indicators North central North east North west South east South south South west Pooled Literacy rate Able to read whole sentence 592(26) 243(10) 131(5) 993(59) 993(53) 707(31) 3,659(27) Able to read part of the sentence 194(8) 100(4) 147(6) 229(14) 171(9) 184(8) 1,025(8) Can’t read at all 1,508(66) 2,207(87) 2,367(89) 461(27) 726(38) 1,360(60) 8,629(65) Prenatal care visit in the last 12 months No 583(25) 379(15) 593(22) 617(37) 555(29) 688(31) 3,415(26) Yes 1,711(75) 2,171(85) 2,052(78) 1,066(63) 1,335(71) 1,563(69) 9,898(74) Time/workload Less than 30 min 1,871(82) 2,080(82) 2,294(87) 1,272(76) 1,545(82) 1,762(78) 10,824(81) 31–60 140(6) 183(7) 144(5) 84(5) 118(6) 145(6) 814(6) Above 60 min 283(12) 287(11) 207(8) 327(19) 227(12) 344(15) 1,675(13) Type of cooking fuel Wood and charcoal 2,186(95) 2,519(99) 2,628(99) 1,477(88) 1,380(73) 1,975(88) 12,165(91) Kerosene 99(4) 21(1) 11(0.4) 194(12) 480(25) 259(12) 1,064(8) Gas/electricity 9(0.3) 10(0.4) 6(0.2) 12(1) 30(2) 17(1) 84(1)Table I. IJSE 47,3 322 UNIV ERSIT Y O F IB ADAN L IB RARY disempowerment also showed that the share of dimensions in which rural women were disempowered increased with K. Invariably empowerment index increased with increment in K. Relative contribution of dimensions to women disempowerment Agency had the highest relative contribution to women’s disempowerment at three or less dimensions, while resource dimension had the highest for four dimensions. However, there was an equal contribution of all the dimensions at five dimensions. However, income/assets dimension had the least contributions to women disempowerment (Table III). Thus, agency had the highest contribution to women’s disempowerment. Distribution of women’s empowerment index This section presented the WEI and its subindices; the five domains of empowerment (5DE) and the GPI. Using the pooled result, women’s disempowerment index for rural women in Nigeria was 0.747 with a weighted average of the 5DE subindex value of 0.705 and the GPI subindex value of 0.784 (Table IV). This shows that although most of the women were disempowered, there was less disparity among men and women in access to productive assets. Consequently, the country is moving toward achieving equality of access to productive assets between males and females. Rural women in the south east had the highest level of empowerment (0.792) with a weighted 5DE of 0.758 and 0.844 GPI subindex while those in the north west had the least (0.661) with the weighted 5DE subindex of 0.696 and 0.609 GPI subindex value. A larger percentage of the rural women were disempowered (61 percent). In computing gender parity, the average inadequacy score of men was also considered. Men in the south south had the highest disempowerment headcount (53 percent) with a disempowerment index (Mo) value of 0.328 and 5DE value of 0.672 while those in the north central and south east had the least disempowerment headcount (42 percent) with disempowerment index (Mo) values of 0.472 and 0.292 and 5DE values of 0.724 and 0.708, respectively. Men’s deprivation in empowerment was very different from that of their women counterparts in rural Nigeria. Decision on wife’s earnings followed by time and leadership Disempowerment cutoffs (k) Multidimensional disempowerment index (Mo) Multidimensional disempowerment headcounts (Ho) Intensity of disempowerment (A) Empowerment index 1 0.645 1.000 0.645 0.355 2 0.564 0.989 0.570 0.436 3 0.464 0.624 0.744 0.536 4 0.264 0.341 0.774 0.736 5 0.099 0.099 1.000 0.901 Dimensions Agency (percent) Income (percent) Resource (percent) Leadership (percent) Time (percent) K 5 1 33.71 16.64 21.91 21.35 23.64 K 5 2 29.25 14.83 21.90 21.32 23.19 K 5 3 23.25 12.47 19.46 20.23 14.82 K 5 4 20.25 13.74 21.41 19.76 17.27 K 5 5 20.00 20.00 20.00 20.00 20.00 Table II. Multidimensional disempowerment index Table III. Relative contribution of dimensions to women’s disempowerment Empowerment of women 323 UNIV ERSIT Y O F IB ADAN L IB RARY R eg io n N or th ce n tr al N or th ea st N or th w es t S ou th ea st S ou th so u th S ou th w es t P oo le d G en d er W om en M en W om en M en W om en M en W om en M en W om en M en W om en M en W om en M en E m p ow er m en t h ea d co u n t (H e) 89 1 95 3 86 7 1, 29 8 81 3 1, 23 0 82 3 70 7 80 6 99 3 91 8 1, 00 3 5, 11 8 6, 45 3 D is em p ow er m en t h ea d co u n t (H d ) 1, 40 3 1, 34 1 1, 68 3 1, 25 2 1, 83 2 1, 41 5 86 0 97 6 1, 08 4 89 7 1, 33 3 1, 24 8 8, 19 5 6, 86 0 H e (p er ce n t) 39 58 34 49 31 53 49 58 43 47 41 55 39 51 H d (p er ce n t) 61 42 66 51 69 47 51 42 57 53 59 45 61 49 A v er ag e in ad eq u ac y sc or e (A p ) 0. 46 76 0. 47 21 0. 46 07 0. 54 61 0. 44 87 0. 53 18 0. 47 45 0. 69 43 0. 42 59 0. 69 07 0. 46 85 0. 57 76 0. 45 77 0. 58 54 D is em p ow er m en t in d ex (M o ) 0. 28 60 0. 27 60 0. 30 41 0. 26 81 0. 31 08 0. 28 45 0. 24 25 0. 29 16 0. 24 43 0. 32 78 0. 27 75 0. 32 03 0. 27 75 0. 29 47 5D E 0. 71 40 0. 72 40 0. 69 59 0. 73 19 0. 68 92 0. 71 55 0. 75 75 0. 70 84 0. 75 57 0. 67 22 0. 72 25 0. 67 97 0. 72 25 0. 70 53 N u m b er of ob se rv at io n s 2, 29 4 2, 55 0 2, 64 5 1, 68 3 1, 89 0 2, 25 1 13 ,3 13 IG P i 0. 15 44 0. 05 97 0. 06 10 0. 12 65 0. 17 90 0. 04 64 0. 10 45 H G P i 0. 10 50 0. 04 06 0. 04 15 0. 08 60 0. 12 17 0. 03 15 0. 07 10 G P I 0. 79 50 0. 60 94 0. 80 85 0. 84 40 0. 82 83 0. 81 85 0. 78 40 0. 6* 5D E 0. 42 84 0. 41 76 0. 41 35 0. 45 45 0. 45 34 0. 43 35 0. 43 35 0. 4* G P I 0. 31 80 0. 24 38 0. 32 34 0. 33 76 0. 33 13 0. 32 74 0. 31 36 W E I 0. 74 6 0. 66 1 0. 73 7 0. 79 2 0. 78 5 0. 76 1 0. 74 71 Table IV. Distribution of women’s empowerment index IJSE 47,3 324 UNIV ERSIT Y O F IB ADAN L IB RARY domain contributed more to men’s disempowerment than to women. On the other hand, men reported little disempowerment on agency especially with respect to decisions on visit to hospital, large household purchase and perceptions to violence. These findings were similar to the pilot findings of Alkire et al. (2012), where WEI for the sample areas in southern Bangladesh was 0.762 with a weighted average of 5DE subindex value of 0.746 and GPI subindex value of 0.899. Women’s empowerment profile across socioeconomic characteristics of women in rural Nigeria The majority of the women who were within the age bracket of 21–30 years old had the highest empowerment (Table V), suggesting that age plays a significant role in determining the women’s empowerment since the empowered women fall within the age brackets of working force, reproductive or active age in the population. However, a larger percentage of elderly womenwere empowered (83.1 percent). This is consistent with the findings of Brajesh (2015) that older women were more empowered than younger ones because women get a position in household as they get older. More specifically, spouses’ age can positively influence health status as experience and information may be lacking among older mothers. Further, a higher proportion (41.98) of the disempowered women in rural Nigeria had no education, an implication that their lack of education has a greater effect on their level of empowerment. Education offers an important channel for empowering women with the knowledge, skills and self-confidence necessary to participate fully in the development process (Promoting Gender Equality, 2013). A strong positive relationship exists between education andwomen empowerment; they further explained that educated women are able to make informed decisions on their health and that of their household members (Nuhu, 2015). The majority (91.79 percent) of the empowered women were married. Thus, their empowerment could be owing to the combination of the women and their husbands’ resources. This implies that married women stand the chance of being empowered than their unmarried counterparts. Further, most of the empowered women were from the middle wealth quintile, while the least percentage of the empowered were from the richest quintile. The majority of the empowered women used pit/latrine as their toilet facilities, while least number of the empowered women used hanging/bucket/composite toilet and others. Good health will help to promote empowerment. However, most empowered women sourced water from tube wells or boreholes, while few of them sourced water from pipe-borne and sachet or bottled water. This suggests to low level of infrastructure and development in rural areas. Most of the empowered women were traders, while unskilled manual workers and clericals had lesser empowerment, suggesting that when a woman is engaged in trading occupation, she will be more empowered because her financial contributions in the family will go a long way in her decisions in the family purchases. This is in corroboration with Chakrabarti and Biswas (2008) that “Economic freedom is a crucial criterion for both male and female members for taking part in decision making at the household level. In that sense, respondent’s contribution in family decisionsmay be recognized for her occupation.”Further, a higher proportion of the empowered women had 5–8 household members (48.81 percent), whereas the smallest portion of the empowered women had more than 12 household members. This implied that the fewer household size limits the number of people that she needs to cater for and the more empowered she would likely be. Determinants of women’s empowerment Factors influencing women’s empowerment were presented in Table VI. The model had log likelihood Chi-square ratio of (�5223.32), which was significant at 1 percent, suggesting the goodness of fit of the model. The Durbin–Watson test was employed to test if there was Empowerment of women 325 UNIV ERSIT Y O F IB ADAN L IB RARY autocorrelation in the logit regression. The result revealed that there was no serial correlation as the Durbin–Watson statistics value was less than 2. Gender of household head, age of child, women’s education in years, wealth index, age of women, women’s occupation, marital status, relationship to household head, religion, household size, age of household head, Variable Disempowered Empowered Total Women’s age in years Less than 20 years 198(9.57) 1,390(12.36) 1,588(11.93) 21–30 1,062(51.3) 5,637(50.14) 6,699(50.32) 31–40 655(31.64) 3,452(30.70) 4,107(30.85) 41–50 155(7.49) 764(6.80) 919(6.90) Women’s educational level Higher 67(3.24) 296(2.63) 363(2.73) No education 869(41.98) 5,685(50.56) 6,554(49.23) Primary 598(28.89) 2,659(23.65) 3,257(24.46) Secondary 536(25.89) 2,603(23.15) 3,139(23.58) Marital status Unmarried 191(9.23) 923(8.21) 1,114(8.37) Married 1,879(90.77) 10,320(91.79) 12,199(91.63) Wealth index Middle 194(9.37) 3,234(28.76) 3,428(25.75) Poorer 1,069(51.64) 3,000(26.68) 4,069(30.56) Poorest 356(17.2) 2,863(25.46) 3,219(24.18) Richer 341(16.47) 1,621(14.42) 1,962(14.74) Richest 110(5.31) 525(4.67) 635(4.77) Household size 1–4 828(40) 4,010(35.67) 4,838(36.34) 5–8 1,006(48.6) 5,488(48.81) 6,494(48.78) 9–12 179(8.65) 1,416(12.59) 1,595(11.98) Above 12 57(2.75) 329(2.93) 386(2.90) Type of toilet facilities Flushed/water system 190(9.18) 866(7.70) 1,056(7.93) No facility/bush 912(44.06) 3,690(32.82) 4,602(34.57) Pit/latrine 926(44.73) 6,398(56.91) 7,324(55.01) Hanging/bucket/composite toilet and others 42(2.03) 289(2.57) 331(2.49) Women’s occupation Agricultural (famer) 538(26.0) 2,118(18.84) 2,656(19.94) Clerical 1(0.05) 14(0.12) 15(0.11) Not working 468(22.61) 3,161(28.12) 3,629(27.26) Professional/technical/managerial 53(2.56) 238(2.12) 291(2.19) Sales 723(34.93) 3,993(35.52) 4,716(35.42) Services 81(3.91) 414(3.68) 495(3.72) Skilled manual 205(9.9) 1,299(11.55) 1,504(11.30) Unskilled manual 1(0.05) 6(0.05) 7(0.05) Source of drinking water Bottled water/sachet water 33(1.59) 99(0.88) 132(0.99) Tanker truck/cart with tank 17(0.82) 100(0.89) 117(0.88) River/dam/lake/pond/spring/rainwater 833(40.23) 3,555(31.61) 4,388(32.97) Pipe-borne water 97(4.68) 625(5.57) 722(5.42) Tube well/borehole 1,090(52.66) 6,864(61.05) 7,954(59.75) Table V. Distribution of women empowerment across their socioeconomic characteristics IJSE 47,3 326 UNIV ERSIT Y O F IB ADAN L IB RARY husband’s age and educational level and locations explained women’s empowerment in rural Nigeria. Women’s educationwas directly related to women’s empowerment status. It was assumed that education offers an important channel for empoweringwomenwith the knowledge, skills and self-confidence necessary to participate fully in the development process (Promoting Gender Equality, 2013). The negative relationship indicated that an additional year of schooling increase would decrease the probability of being empowered by�0.0012 unit. This could probably be owing to the patrilineal African family culture in which irrespective of her educational attainment, there is a possibility of her husband influencingmost of her decisions or other factors of empowerment. Also women’s age has an indirect relationship with women empowerment status, indicating that younger womenweremore empowered than older ones. An additional year in the age of the rural woman would reduce the likelihood of her being empowered by 0.0010 unit. This is in contrast with the findings of Qurra-tul-ain, Meraj and Sadaqat (2015) that an increase in empowerment status of women in India increased with their ages. Being among the poorest of the poor also limited women’s empowerment, while women’s empowerment was enhanced if the household was headed by a female. Further, household size was positively related to the likelihood of being empowered. Thus, large household sizes were more empowered than smaller ones, buttressing the findings of Upadhyay and Karasek (2012) that women’s empowerment is associated with a desire for larger families in sub-Saharan Africa. Husband’s educational characteristics can affect women empowerment through multiple channels. For instance, educated men are less likely Variables Coefficients dy/dx Women attributes Women’s education in years 0.0096* (0.0055) 0.0012*** (0.0007) Women’s marital status �0.0828 (0.0926) �0.0100 (0.0112) Women’s age �0.0086** (0.0045) �0.0010** (0.0005) Wealth index Poorest �0.1192*** (0.0342) �0.0144*** (0.0041) Poorer 0.0319 (0.1234) 0.0039 (0.0149) Middle 0.0936 (0.1331) 0.0113 (0.0161) Richer 0.0939 (0.1268) 0.0114 (0.0153) Religion �0.0299 (0.1209) �0.0036 (0.0146) Household attributes Household size 0.0181** (0.0081) 0.0022** (0.0010) Sex of household head 0.1643** (0.0807) 0.0199** (0.0098) Husband’s attributes Husband’s age 0.0042 (0.0029) 0.0005 (0.0003) Husband’s education �0.0220*** (0.0085) �0.0027*** (0.0010) Environmental attributes North central �1.6725*** (0.1374) �0.2022*** (0.0166) North east �0.6713*** (0.1540) �0.0811*** (0.0186) North west 0.5125*** (0.1599) �0.0620*** (0.0193) South south �1.8604*** (0.1352) �0.2249*** (0.0163) South west �2.2848*** (0.1345) �0.2762*** (0.0161) Constant 3.4429 (0.2504) Note(s): Log likelihood 5 �5223.3151, LR chi2(18) 5 1058.73, No of obs 5 13,313, Pseudo R2 5 0.0920, Prob > chi2 5 0.0000, Durbin–Watson d-statistics (0. 13313)5 1.4013. * represents 10% level of significance. ** represents 5% level of significance. *** represents 1% level of significance. Table VI. Determinants of women empowerment in rural Nigeria Empowerment of women 327 UNIV ERSIT Y O F IB ADAN L IB RARY to subject their wives to domestic violence and hence lead to greater empowerment of women. Also they can assist in bridging the educational gap between them and their wives. Husbands’ educational level was negatively related to the likelihood of being empowered, indicating that women empowerment decreased by 0.0027 with an additional year of schooling of the women’s spouses. This could be because the level of formal education was generally low in rural Nigeria. In regard to environmental factors, the probability of a rural woman being empowered increasedwith thewoman residing in the north west of rural Nigeria, while being a resident in north central, north east, south south and south west has an indirect relationship with women’s empowerment relative to being a resident in south east. The result showed a high marginal impact on the probability of a woman being empowered from a geographical location. Test for heteroscedasticity To test if there is heteroscedasticity in the logit regression, Glejser test was employed. The absolute value of the residuals obtained from the logit regression result was regressed on the predicted explanatory variable. It was concluded that there was no heteroscedasticity since there was no significant relationship between the two variables (Table VII). Conclusion The outcome of this study is a guiding document for policymakers in designing gender- responsive intervention programs and implementation of a genuine gendermainstreaming in rural development policy inNigeria. The peculiarities of each zone should be consideredwhile designing and implementing such women’s empowerment interventions. The majority of the rural women did not own house nor discussed their health issueswith healthworkers. Neither did they have autonomy on how their earnings were spent nor had formal education. There was also a high incidence of domestic drudgery and disempowerment in cooking facilities. Thus, rural women in Nigeria had no public voice on economic, health, political, social or cultural issues. Further, women’s empowerment was low in rural Nigeria, especially, among the female-headed households, elderly, poorest and uneducated women with uneducated spouses. Although most of the women were disempowered, gender parity was high with respect to access to productive assets. Thus, intervention programs should intensify campaign on improving formal schooling for young girls and nonformal education programs for adult populations in rural Nigeria. Such interventions should target poor, youngerwomen, female-headed households with small households, especially in northern Nigeria. Policies Sum of square Degree of freedom Mean square Model residual 4.387 1 4.387 Residual 104707.881 13,311 7.866 Total 104712.268 13,312 7.866 Esq Coefficient Std. Error t-value Pp �0.022 0.029 0.75 Constant 1.103*** 0.061 18.19 F (1, 13,311) Prob > F 5 0.4552 R-squared 5 0.0000 Adj. R-squared 5 0.0000 Root MSE 5 2.8047 No. of observation 5 13,313 Note(s): *** represents 1% level of significance Table VII. Test for heteroscedasticity IJSE 47,3 328 UNIV ERSIT Y O F IB ADAN L IB RARY targeted at empowering rural women should also include safety net programs for the poorest of the poor among the women. Women empowerment agency had the highest relative contribution to women’s disempowerment. Therefore, efforts should be directed at giving rural women economic freedom to be active participants in decision-making on household finances. Also, actions to improve women’s voice in the household must be combined with awareness campaign of engaging men in supporting women’s empowerment. 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Appendix Domain Indicators Weights Agency Who made the decision on visit to hospital was used as a proxy for men and women to jointly share responsibility for making community decisions 7 Decision on large household purchase was used as a proxy for men andwomen to jointly share responsibility for making household decisions 7 Perceptions on violence against women 6 Income Respondent owns, works for self, others or for family was used as a proxy to owning and operating businesses 10 Control over use of income/earning was used as a proxy for access to financial services 10 Leadership Owning a house was used as a proxy for membership in community organization(s)/group(s), since woman belongs to landlord associations 10 Discussing family planning with health workers was used as a proxy for comfortable speaking in public 10 Resources Literacy rate 10 Minimum prenatal care visits 10 Time/ workload Time spent in sourcing for water 10 Type of cooking fuel was used to as proxy for workloads; household division of labor on domestic drudgery tasks 10 Table AI. The five domains of empowerment in the WEI IJSE 47,3 332 UNIV ERSIT Y O F IB ADAN L IB RARY http://unstats.un.org/unsd/gender/worldswomen.html http://unstats.un.org/unsd/gender/worldswomen.html https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.TOTL.FE.ZS https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.TOTL.FE.ZS http://datatopics.worldbank.org/gender/country/nigeria http://datatopics.worldbank.org/gender/country/nigeria http://ebrary.ifpri.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15738coll2/id/130167discussion http://ebrary.ifpri.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15738coll2/id/130167discussion Corresponding author Oluwakemi Adeola Obayelu can be contacted at: jkemmyade@yahoo.co.uk For instructions on how to order reprints of this article, please visit our website: www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/licensing/reprints.htm Or contact us for further details: permissions@emeraldinsight.com Variables Definitions Sex of household head 1 5 female; 0 if otherwise Household size Number of household members Woman’s educational level In years Woman’s age In years Woman’ marital status 1 5 married; 0 if otherwise Woman’s occupation 1 5 employed; 0 if otherwise Religion 1 5 Christianity; 0 if otherwise Wealth index Poorest 1 5 poorest; 0 if otherwise Poorer 1 5 poorer; 0 if otherwise Middle 1 5 middle; 0 if otherwise Richer 1 5 richer; 0 if otherwise Husband’s age In years Husband’s education In years North central 1 5 resident in north central; 0 if otherwise North east 1 5 resident in north east; 0 if otherwise North west 1 5 resident in north west; 0 if otherwise South south 1 5 resident in south south; 0 if otherwise South west 1 5 resident in south-west; 0 if otherwise Table AII. Definitions of variables Empowerment of women 333 UNIV ERSIT Y O F IB ADAN L IB RARY mailto:jkemmyade@yahoo.co.uk Dimensions and drivers of women's empowerment in rural Nigeria Introduction Literature review Methodology Results and discussion Dimensions of women's empowerment in Nigeria Women's empowerment indices Relative contribution of dimensions to women disempowerment Distribution of women's empowerment index Women's empowerment profile across socioeconomic characteristics of women in rural Nigeria Determinants of women's empowerment Test for heteroscedasticity Conclusion References Appendix