Huis Marloes A, Hansen Nina, Otten Sabine, Lensink Robert
Department of Social Psychology, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.
Department of Economics, Econometrics, and Finance, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.
Front Psychol. 2017 Sep 28;8:1678. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01678. eCollection 2017.
Women's empowerment is an important goal in achieving sustainable development worldwide. Offering access to microfinance services to women is one way to increase women's empowerment. However, empirical evidence provides mixed results with respect to its effectiveness. We reviewed previous research on the impact of microfinance services on different aspects of women's empowerment. We propose a Three-Dimensional Model of Women's Empowerment to integrate previous findings and to gain a deeper understanding of women's empowerment in the field of microfinance services. This model proposes that women's empowerment can take place on three distinct dimensions: (1) the micro-level, referring to an individuals' personal beliefs as well as actions, where personal empowerment can be observed (2) the meso-level, referring to beliefs as well as actions in relation to relevant others, where relational empowerment can be observed and (3) the macro-level, referring to outcomes in the broader, societal context where societal empowerment can be observed. Importantly, we propose that time and culture are important factors that influence women's empowerment. We suggest that the time lag between an intervention and its evaluation may influence when empowerment effects on the different dimensions occur and that the type of intervention influences the sequence in which the three dimensions can be observed. We suggest that cultures may differ with respect to which components of empowerment are considered indicators of empowerment and how women's position in society may influence the development of women's empowerment. We propose that a Three-Dimensional Model of Women's Empowerment should guide future programs in designing, implementing, and evaluating their interventions. As such our analysis offers two main practical implications. First, based on the model we suggest that future research should differentiate between the three dimensions of women's empowerment to increase our understanding of women's empowerment and to facilitate comparisons of results across studies and cultures. Second, we suggest that program designers should specify how an intervention should stimulate which dimension(s) of women's empowerment. We hope that this model inspires longitudinal and cross-cultural research to examine the development of women's empowerment on the personal, relational, and societal dimension.
妇女赋权是在全球实现可持续发展的一个重要目标。为妇女提供小额金融服务是增强妇女权能的一种方式。然而，实证证据对于其有效性给出了参差不齐的结果。我们回顾了先前关于小额金融服务对妇女赋权不同方面影响的研究。我们提出一个妇女赋权三维模型，以整合先前的研究结果，并更深入地理解小额金融服务领域的妇女赋权。该模型提出，妇女赋权可在三个不同维度发生：（1）微观层面，指个人的个人信念及行动，在此可观察到个人赋权；（2）中观层面，指与相关他人有关的信念及行动，在此可观察到关系赋权；（3）宏观层面，指在更广泛的社会背景中的结果，在此可观察到社会赋权。重要的是，我们提出时间和文化是影响妇女赋权的重要因素。我们认为，干预与评估之间的时间间隔可能会影响不同维度上赋权效应出现的时间，并且干预类型会影响可观察到这三个维度的顺序。我们认为，不同文化对于哪些赋权组成部分被视为赋权指标以及妇女在社会中的地位如何影响妇女赋权的发展可能存在差异。我们建议，妇女赋权三维模型应指导未来项目在设计、实施和评估其干预措施时的工作。因此，我们的分析有两个主要实际意义。首先，基于该模型，我们建议未来的研究应区分妇女赋权的三个维度，以增进我们对妇女赋权的理解，并便于跨研究和跨文化比较结果。其次，我们建议项目设计者应明确说明一项干预措施应如何激发妇女赋权的哪个（些）维度。我们希望这个模型能激发纵向和跨文化研究，以考察妇女赋权在个人、关系和社会维度上的发展情况。
