Search results

This study investigates the role of feminist solidarity in influencing women’s empowerment within Kyrgyzstan’s community-based tourism sector, exploring how traditional values intersect with feminist activism to create opportunities for socio-economic growth while highlighting the dynamic interactions that shape empowerment in this context.

Using 32 in-depth interviews, this research applies a post-colonial feminist perspective to examine the complex dynamics of feminist solidarity among women entrepreneurs in Kyrgyzstan’s unique socio-cultural environment.

Feminist solidarity is identified as a catalyst for socio-economic transformation and community empowerment, promoting economic opportunities, cultural preservation and knowledge-sharing across generations. The study introduces a spiral model of empowerment, illustrating the dynamic progression from individual empowerment to community solidarity, highlighting the evolving and interconnected nature of these processes.

The findings demonstrate that feminist solidarity drives socio-economic change in post-colonial contexts, offering opportunities for sustainable development and community empowerment. However, policymakers must approach leveraging feminist solidarity with caution, ensuring cultural sensitivity and avoiding oversimplified interventions. The community-based tourism sector illustrates that, when integrated thoughtfully, feminist solidarity can promote growth and cultural preservation, but only when aligned with local values and contexts.

This study advances the understanding of feminist solidarity and empowerment by not only providing a contextual analysis within Kyrgyzstan’s community-based tourism sector but also offering insights into the broader processes and dynamics of solidarity and empowerment. It illustrates how these concepts evolve and interact, demonstrating their impact on collective action and socio-economic change in post-colonial settings, thus enriching the theoretical discourse on gender and entrepreneurship.

Female entrepreneurs in tourism are increasingly asserting themselves, yet there is a need to examine the psychological empowerment dimensions of their entrepreneurial journeys. This study aims to address this gap by defining psychological empowerment typologies of female entrepreneurs operating in challenging socio-economic contexts in urban Zimbabwe.

This research used data from face-to-face and online interviews with 20 female entrepreneurs in urban Zimbabwe.

The study identified four distinct typologies of psychologically empowered entrepreneurs: resilient, collaborative, social change and authentic entrepreneurs. These typologies show unique patterns of intrapersonal, interactional, behavioural and relational empowerment dimensions, highlighting the multidimensional nature of psychological empowerment among female entrepreneurs.

This research makes an original contribution by exploring psychological empowerment typologies among female entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe. It examines the intersection of socio-economic challenges and empowerment dynamics and identifies distinct typologies. These insights provide valuable guidance for policymakers, support organisations and female entrepreneurs to design targeted interventions that enhance entrepreneurial empowerment and promote gender equality.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an assessment model for corporate social responsibility (CSR) that is interlinked to sustainable development and examine the model on CSR cases in Egypt, exploring whether CSR is embedded into the core agenda of the corporations. This analysis helps in understanding the state of CSR in Egypt and countries with a similar socio-economic background.

The study presents a sustainable development assessment model for CSR, based on combining and modifying Archie Carroll’s model of Hierarchy of Corporate Responsibilities (1979, 2010) and Donna Wood’s Corporate Performance Model (1991) to include sustainable development imperatives. The proposed model analyzes two CSR practices of corporates. Qualitative analysis using in-depth interviews was conducted in the two case studies: a global multinational company represented in Egypt and a family business typical of many Egyptian corporates.

Generalizing from the results of the assessment in Egypt and countries with similar circumstances, most CSR practices in such a context still fall under philanthropy and few under human development or the business case. The lack of the formal institutional framework for organizing the role of the State in CSR promotion leads to missing the opportunity of linking CSR to the Sustainable Development Goals or similar strategies.

The paper presents a CSR assessment model adopted in developing countries, with a focus on incorporating sustainable development indicators since the 1990s. This methodological development since 2010 is timely and particularly useful for relating CSR to the recent global focus on sustainable development.

This research aims to explore the significance of cooperative efforts in promoting financial participation to enhance the socio-economic empowerment of the rural Muslims.

The primary study with a structured questionnaire has been conducted taking a sample of 398 rural Muslim respondents from various rural regions of south India through proportionate stratified sampling techniques. Regression analysis, paired sample t-test and structural equation modelling (SEM) through statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) 26 & SPSS analysis of moment structures (AMOS) 23 software have been implemented to test the relationship.

The research outcome demonstrated a remarkable difference in the rural Muslim’s socio-economic conditions before and after availing the loans from cooperatives. Consequently, an extension of cooperative efforts widens the scope of financial participation which again has positively enhanced rural Muslim’s socio-economic empowerment.

This study will help various policymakers, academicians and communities to take necessary action for the upliftment of a particular community. The research further adds on to the existing research on the need and importance of cooperative efforts as an alternative finance for marginalised community in developing and emerging countries.

The result of this study is only confined to south India, posing a limitation for the study. Apart from the geographical restriction, the study solemnly covers the rural Muslim community extracting other sections of the society. Hence, for more generalisable pictures of the current results, further research is recommended from other stakeholders’ perspectives.

The purpose of this paper is to check the impact of financial inclusion on economic development of marginalized communities through the mediation of socio-economic empowerment.

In order to fulfil the objectives of the study, primary data were collected from 382 bank customers belonging to marginalized communities breathing in Jammu district of J and K by using purposive sampling technique. The data were collected during the month of April–August 2020. Multivariate statistical techniques such as EFA, CFA and SEM were used for data analysis and scale purification.

The study’s results reveal that financial inclusion has a direct and significant impact on economic development of marginalized communities through the mediation of social and economic empowerment. The study highlights that despite various initiatives taken by the government towards financial inclusion, there is a denial from the financial institutions to extend the credit to the marginalized communities due to lack of education, illiteracy, lack of awareness, attitude of bankers and policy directions to the banking sector, which confine these communities to feel proud, dignified, confident and self-reliant to face any financial crisis.

First the in-depth analysis of the study is restricted to Jammu district only that restricts the generalization of the results to the whole population of J and K. Second, the data were collected from respondents belonging to marginalized communities only. Third, comparative study of marginalized households who are covered under the financial inclusion drive and those who are still financially excluded has not been done yet. Fourth, the questionnaire approach was the only way to gather primary data and thus, the results might have a common-method bias.

The study makes contribution in the direction of financial inclusion narrative relating to socio-economic empowerment and economic development of marginalized communities. It looks into how for the socio-economic aspects of marginalized communities influence their exclusion from the financial system of the country. The study also provides valuable insights for the policymakers, researchers and academicians both at the countrywide and intercontinental level to devise and put into practice programmes that will widen right to use financial products and services leading to cutback of poverty incidence, income parity, social and economic empowerment, economic development and reduction in caste and gender based discrimination.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the socio-economic factors that will affect women’s empowerment from an Islamic perspective (the Tawhidi epistemological approach) and the impact of women’s empowerment on reducing family poverty.

Using a quantitative approach to see the relationship between research variables with structural equation model-partial least squares as the analysis tool.

In general, socio-economic variables had direct and indirect effects on reducing family poverty. In addition, the variable of women’s empowerment in an Islamic perspective can strengthen the influence of socio-economic variables on the alleviation of family poverty.

The limitation of this research lies in the use of religiosity as an indicator with some constraints and the inclusion of all the necessary dimensions of a Muslim family. Additionally, because of the scope of the present research, the results may not be applicable in different areas, especially countries with distinctive characteristics such as having Muslims as the major population. On the other hand, the results of this research may provide comprehensive indicators of empowered Muslim women which enable the correlation between the socio-economic factors and women’s empowerment and how women’s empowerment can contribute to the alleviation of family poverty from the perspective of Islam.

This research provides new insights into the variable of women’s empowerment measured using the Islamic paradigm (Tawhidi epistemology) and includes religiosity as a variable that directly and indirectly influences the reduction of family poverty.

Women's empowerment is nothing new; it has been acknowledged as an essential element of eradicating poverty and advancing the economy. However, it remains problematic in most developing countries, such as Afghanistan. This research evaluates women's empowerment experiences by utilising Self-Help Groups (SHGs) as a fundamental development method to empower women economically and socially. This study adopts a qualitative research style, with data mainly acquired from rural areas (Kabul province). The findings indicated that SHG involvement is closely associated with families' socio-economic well-being, meaning that SHG participants are more empowered than those who do not engage or are oblivious to SHGs. SHGs confront various obstacles in Afghanistan, including (but not limited to) erroneous cultural norms, security issues, inadequate financial assistance and poor member participation, all of which influence operations. This study makes important recommendations for promoting and achieving women's integration and active participation in SHGs, including increasing social awareness, support from civil society and the government, laws and regulations that support women, strategies to increase women's economic and social empowerment and linking groups to commercial banks.

The study attempts to assess the socio-economic development in Bodoland Territorial Area District (BTAD) of Assam in North Eastern Region of India. This region is one of the most underdeveloped areas in India. The study also examines whether demographic and social characteristics in the form of social groups, number of family members, number of employed members in the family, education of the head of household, sources of income and location determine the variation in the level of socio-economic development. The authors surveyed 400 households during February to May 2018 in both rural and urban areas of BTAD to achieve the objective of the study.

The authors use the concept of Amartya Sen's capability approach (CA) for assessment of development and constructed an index of Multidimensional Development.

There is variation in the distribution of developmental parameters across the study area. It is found that urban locations have better achievement in the multidimensional index score, while the spread of development is not even in the rural locations. An interesting revelation of this study is that while urban areas depict better performance in income, asset, education and empowerment, they have a relatively lower score in health dimension as compared to rural areas. The study shows that level of development depends on demographic as well as social characteristics of the households.

This study does not analyse temporal dynamics of development that is necessary to examine how development evolves because of data constraints.

The study provides an understanding of the socio-economic development in BTAD area in a multidimensional framework. This study is the first of its kind to assess the nature and extent of development realised in BTAD through the capability framework. The study supports more recent findings.

This study aims to explore economic, social, psychological and political empowerment and dis-empowerment of women caused by microfiance interventions. Women tend to face the brunt of societal discrimination created by economic, social, psychological and political disempowerment. This led to the emergence of the microfinance model for the rural poor and specifically focused on women as an agency for social change.

This study is based on a systemic literature review to examine microfinance-led women empowerment to reduce the ambiguity in theoretical and empirical underpinning.

The study’s findings suggest that even though microfinance as a developmental model is not a runaway success, it did make some positive impact on the status of women.

This study shows that the microfinance program empowers women and reduces societal inequalities to some extent, but literature also suggests that microfinance as a model has failed to make the requisite socio-economic change, and in some cases, there is adverse impact.

This study examines the status of women’s empowerment and its socio-economic determinants based on living conditions across 22 Indian states and Union Territories by constructing a composite women empowerment index of six components including women participation in three household decisions(%) based on data from the National Family Health Survey(NFHS)-5, Phase I.

We carry out a principal component analysis (PCA) for constructing a women empowerment index based on the above six indicators using a correlation matrix. Then we apply a static panel data approach to find out the role of socio-economic determinants such as per capita income (State level per capita GDP), years of schooling, the underage marriage of girls, the standard of living conditions such as access to safe drinking water, sanitization facility, use of iodized salt, etc.

The constructed composite index based on PCA determines one composite index for each time period, that is 2015–2016 and 2019–2020. The static panel regression is run for the composite index and six components of the index. The regression results considering eight socioeconomic and living conditions parameters demonstrate that the variables like the use of clean fuel cooking, the underage marriage of women, access to improved sanitation facility have an important impact in explaining variations in women empowerment over the years.

The major observations of this study in understanding the status and determinants of women empowerment across Indian states clearly show that women education is the key to improving women empowerment apart from several living condition variables.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-01-2023-0015