A Structural Equation Model of Female Empowerment

This paper proposes a structural equation model to measure and explain female empowerment in Cambodia. Empowerment is defined as the decision-making ability of a woman regarding her strategic and non-strategic life choices. Grounded in the Capability Approach and in the gender economics literature this conceptualisation accounts for three key elements: resources, values/traditions, and decision-outcomes. These elements interact into a system of structural equations where a latent variable is specified to measure empowerment; decision-outcomes enter as partial metrics of empowerment; and resources, and values/traditions are modelled as exogenous factors. Stochastic dominance analysis is used to compare the empowerment status of women across life choices.