Women and men play different roles in the diverse collection of societies and economies that exist. However, due to objective barriers, women face difficulties accessing the same labour market opportunities as men.
Changing this situation is the goal of women’s economic empowerment, specifically, women having equal participation and access to resources.
Many economists admit that creating supportive conditions for women to enable them to become independent and active in the labour market contributes to overall economic growth and prosperity. For that reason, empowering women economically becomes a more and more important topic on the agendas of decision- and policy-makers.
However, a true shift requires not only a system change in policies and infrastructure, but also a change in our mindsets. Without involving men more in childcare and family care, a shift of the traditional family-paradigm cannot be achieved.
Moreover, without considering the overall historical, societal, economic and country-specific contexts of each community, we cannot introduce measures which will actually lead to long-lasting and efficient changes.
A more complex view of the relationship between gender and the economy is analysed in the article on „Feminist Economics“. If you are interested to know more about key assumptions of the feminist paradigm and find out about the roots of gender inequality, we would like to invite you to read this article for another dose of inspiration.
