Empowerment

About: Empowerment is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 42112 publications have been published within this topic receiving 752953 citations.

Does Micro-Credit Empower Women : Evidence from Bangladesh

Abstract: This paper examines the effects of men's and women's participation in group-based micro-credit programs on a large set of qualitative responses to questions that characterize women's autonomy and gender relations within the household. The data come from a special survey carried out in rural Bangladesh in 1998-99. The results are consistent with the view that women's participation in micro-credit programs helps to increase women's empowerment. Credit program participation leads to women taking a greater role in household decisionmaking, having greater access to financial and economic resources, having greater social networks, having greater bargaining power compared with their husbands, and having greater freedom of mobility. Female credit also tended to increase spousal communication in general about family planning and parenting concerns. The effects of male credit on women's empowerment were, at best, neutral, and at worse, decidedly negative. Male credit had a negative effect on several arenas of women's empowerment, including physical mobility, access to savings and economic resources, and power to manage some household transactions.

Women Have Found Respect: Gender Quotas, Symbolic Representation, and Female Empowerment in Rwanda

Abstract: Building on previous studies of women's formal, descriptive, and substantive representation in Rwanda, this article examines women's symbolic representation, defined as the broader social and cultural impact of the greater representation of women in the Rwandan political system. It explores the cultural meanings of gender quotas by analyzing popular perceptions of women, of women's roles in politics and society more broadly, and of changing cultural practices vis-a-vis gender. Data were gathered over 24 months of ethnographic research conducted between 1997 and 2009 and by ongoing documentary research. The study finds that although Rwandan women have made few legislative gains, they have reaped other benefits, including increased respect from family and community members, enhanced capacity to speak and be heard in public forums, greater autonomy in decision making in the family, and increased access to education. Yet there have also been some unexpected negative consequences, such as increased friction with male siblings, male withdrawal from politics, increased marital discord, and a perception that marriage as an institution has been disrupted by the so-called upheaval of gender roles. Most significantly, increased formal representation of women has not led to increased democratic legitimacy for the government.

The road to excellence [human resource management]

Abstract: Lakeside is an autonomous division of Aeroquip Aerospace (USA) and is responsible for meeting all its budgets, development plans and goals. It has been extremely successful over the last few years and has undergone a tremendous change process. In January 1996 the company was re-organised into product focus factories by collocating different functions together as a team. Self-directed work teams have also been introduced throughout the organisation, further enhancing the workforce empowerment and their strong teaming culture. Having created the culture for change, it was necessary to ensure that everyone cleared understood what was expected of them. By creating clear alignment and having everyone pulling in the same direction, they have saved wasting considerable resources and energy. In order to create this alignment, personal planners were given to each employee every year. The planner showed the linkage from the Corporate Goals through to European, to Division and down to team/individual goals. Each employee signed their planner committing to specific individual goals that linked back to the Corporate Mission. (4 pages)

A new continuity with colonial administration: Participation in development management

Abstract: Development management owes an unacknowledged debt to colonial administration, specifically to indirect rule. Development management, as opposed to development administration, has newly adopted a specific set of managerialist participatory methods, to achieve 'ownership' of development interventions. These methods are particularly evident in World Bank/ imf implementation of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers ( prsp s) and Comprehensive Development Frameworks ( cdf s). They have their conceptual foundation in action research, invented, it can justly be argued, by John Collier, Commissioner of the US Bureau of Indian (ie Native American) Affairs 1933-1945. Collier was a self-proclaimed colonial administrator, and remained an advocate of indirect rule as late as 1963. Evidence is presented to show his development of action research was a tool of indirect rule. Achieving 'empowerment' through participation was at its very beginning, therefore, subject to the colonialist's asserted sovereign power; and the lim...

A Self-Care Framework for Social Workers: Building a Strong Foundation for Practice:

Abstract: Self-care is widely recognized as critical to social work practice, yet little empirical support or practical guidance exists in the literature to steer social workers in its implementation. Self-care may not only be crucial in preventing secondary traumatic stress, burnout, and high staff turnover, but it can serve as a means of empowerment that enables practitioners to proactively and intentionally negotiate their overall health, well-being, and resilience. The purpose of this article is threefold: (a) to explore current conceptualizations of self-care; (b) to provide a clear conceptual definition of and an applied framework for self-care; and (c) to explicate the utility of this framework for social work practitioners, students, educators, and social service agencies& supervisors and administrators.