In recent decades, women’s empowerment and equity have been increasingly recognized as potentially crucial components of efforts to achieve myriad health and development objectives. Disparities in educational access, limited economic opportunities, and low relative status of women all shape women’s ability to control their health and their futures. Improving women’s agency is essential not only for successful family planning and reproductive health but also for improving development, and global organizations are increasingly taking note. The International Conference on Population and Development in 1994 recognized that freely deciding the number, spacing and timing of one’s children is a basic human right. The Third Millennium Development Goal and the World Bank’s World Development Report of 2012 detailed global commitments to promoting gender equality, empowering women, and encouraging development. However, significant barriers to achieving these goals persist resulting in low contraceptive prevalence, high global unmet need for contraceptives, and high fertility.
The Bixby Center diligently seeks to investigate the potentially important role of empowerment on reproductive outcomes through integrating current knowledge and developing solutions to put evidence into action. As part of such efforts to expand the evidence base and pool knowledge, Bixby Center researchers are members of the University of California Global Health Institute (UCGHI) Center of Expertise (COE) to work towards gender equity and empowerment through our projects, publications and other research, and more. Throughout much of our research, we have adopted Kabeer’s now-classic conceptualization of empowerment, which she defined as “the ability to make strategic life choices” [1, 2]. The Bixby director serves as co-chair of the Knowledge Dissemination Team and co-leads the Women’s Health and Empowerment literature reviews. Bixby researchers have also taken an active role call in consolidating and disseminating existing knowledge and available evidence from various sources. For example, in recent literature reviews, Bixby co-authors examined a broad array of factors conceptualized as indicators or proxies of female empowerment including status and autonomy. In addition, in a forthcoming book featuring international case studies, Bixby co-editors focus on the relationship between women’s empowerment and health outcomes. Bixby researchers are also taking the lead in designing and implementing a project to identify and mentor local champions for women’s empowerment in developing countries.
Beyond our contributions to the UCGHI, the Bixby Center has developed projects and initiatives that often include empowerment as central components to program design and/or incorporate indicators of equity and gender dynamics into our research. Specific projects and related activities are details below:
- Collaboration
- University of California Global Health Institute Center of Expertise (UCGHI COE):
- collaboration of experts from across the 10 UC campuses to pool knowledge and leverage complimentary insight into issues of empowerment and equity
- University of California Global Health Institute Center of Expertise (UCGHI COE):
- Publications
- Women’s Empowerment and Fertility: A Review of the Literature, an extensive review of the literature on women’s empowerment and fertility
- Women’s Empowerment and Family Planning: A Review of the Literature, manuscript in progress of a companion paper on women’s empowerment and family planning
- Women’s Empowerment and Global Health: A Twenty-First Century Agenda, an upcoming book collection of case studies that examine improving women’s empowerment and health outcomes through the melding of science and advocacy
- Presentations
- Symposium on Gender Equity and Global Reproductive Health hosted by the Center on Gender Equity and Health at UCSD
- “Embarking on a Program to Improve Reproductive Services for Girls and Women in Rwanda” by N. Prata
- “Effects of husband/partner approval on modern methods of contraception use in Angola” by N. Prata
- “Women’s Empowerment and Family Planning: A Review of the Literature” presentation of select preliminary findings from the COE lit review on Women’s Health and Empowerment/Family Planning by A. Fraser
- “Decision-making Leading to Early Marriage in Northern Nigeria” by D. Perlman
- Symposium on Gender Equity and Global Reproductive Health hosted by the Center on Gender Equity and Health at UCSD
- Projects
- Designed to promote on empowerment:
- Centre for Girls’ Education (CGE), Kaduna State, Northern Nigeria
- Organizing to Advance Solutions in the Sahel (OASIS)
- Women’s Health and Empowerment Champions
- Designed to promote on empowerment:
- Other research projects exploring gender dynamics:
- Kabeer, N., Resources, agency, achievements: Reflections on the measurement of women’s empowerment. Development and change, 1999. 30(3): p. 435-464.
- Kabeer, N., Reflections on the measurement of women’s empowerment: Theory and practiceDiscussing women’s empowerment: Theory and Practice. Stockholm: Novum Grafiska, AB. 2001.