Women’s empowerment is a crucial step in
achieving gender equality and thus is essential
for equitable development. However, in most
countries in Asia and the Pacific women earn
less than men; have limited access to bank
loans, land and property other than land; face
discrimination with respect to education and
healthcare; and are under-represented in
policy and decision-making.
Progress towards gender equality is occurring
slowly and unevenly over geographical regions,
according to the United Nations Millennium
Development Summit of September 2010. If
greater and more concerted efforts are not made,
MDG gender equality targets might not be met
by 2015.
Measuring women’s empowerment is challenging.
Tracking progress is difficult since data are
limited and measures are complex. Women’s
empowerment can represent a diverse range of
concepts and outcomes and may vary widely
among individuals, cultures and countries.
Nonetheless, some of the key strategic and crosscutting
areas of opportunity and capacity
for women include education, economic
empowerment, policymaking, decision-making
and well-being. All of these forms of
empowerment intersect with one another in
creating limitations or possibilities for women to
improve their lives. They directly impact upon
progress towards gender equality, and thus
development as a whole.
Economic empowerment
Economic empowerment is a significant driver of
other forms of women’s empowerment, since
access to economic resources facilitates
opportunities to develop personal capacities and
to participate fully and equally in society.
Economic empowerment encompasses access to decent employment and income as well as to
credit and control of assets. Lack of access to
decent employment is affected by, among other
factors, low educational levels, discrimination
against women and the burden of unremunerated
responsibilities in the home (for which alternative
State provision is often scarce). Additionally,
a lack of maternity-leave provisions may further
limit women’s opportunities.
Participation in the paid economy
Part of the disparity in income can be explained
by the different forms of women’s participation
in the paid economy. Women are overrepresented
in poorly paid positions and sectors of the
economy and are less represented in the often
better-paid industrial and service sectors across
Asia and the Pacific. For example, based on
available data, 47% of working-age women were
engaged in the agricultural sector in 2008,
compared with 38% of men. The proportion of
women employed in industry in the region has
increased only slightly from 17% in 1991 to 18%
in 2008. Many working-age Asian and Pacific
women are own-account or contributing family
workers in “vulnerable employment”, meaning
that their incomes are low, unstable and
unaccompanied by social protection or regulation
of working conditions. (Social protection
measures are defined as those which prevent,
manage, and overcome situations that adversely
affect people’s well being.1) While vulnerable
employment has negative impacts on both men,
women and children in a household, it can be
particularly acute for women and children
because of the lack of associated social protection,
such as, for example, maternity-leave provisions.
As a proportion of male economic participation,
female participation in the labour force has
remained constant at 65% between 1991 and
2009. However, that rate is not consistent across the region; North and Central Asia has an average
participation of 93% as compared with South
and South-West Asia at 45%. There are even
a few exceptional countries where female
economic participation exceeds that of men,
such as Azerbaijan (101%), the Lao People’s
Democratic Republic (102%) and the Russian
Federation (101%).
Figure I.52 – Employment by sector, Asia and
the Pacific, 2008
Figure I.53 – Female participation in the labour
force, Asia-Pacific subregions, 1991 and 2009
Women’s access to credit and control of
assets
Entrepreneurship is one strategy for advancing
women’s economic empowerment. Poor women
in particular often work in micro, small and
medium-sized enterprises, which have been
reported to account for up to 60% of formal
sector employment in most low-income
Asian and Pacific countries.2 Many times
women’s home-based businesses play a crucial
role in the survival of the family and in
generating supplementary family income. Such
entrepreneurial activities also serve to promote
confidence and self-sufficiency and raise status in
society. However, in most Asia-Pacific countries women face discrimination in gaining access to
credit. Such economic disempowerment is
further reinforced by women’s lack of access to
other important economic and security assets,
such as land and property.
Women’s access to land in Afghanistan,
Bangladesh, Fiji, India, Islamic Republic of Iran,
Mongolia, Papua New Guinea and Sri Lanka is
very limited. Women’s access to bank loans and
other forms of property is also very low in many
countries. Women in Afghanistan and Papua
New Guinea have no access to property other
than land.
Figure I.54 – Women’s access to bank loans,
land and property other than land, number of
countries by index value, Asia-Pacific
subregions, 2009
The lack of economic rights in terms of access
to, and ownership of, assets often leaves women
dependent on their husbands, fathers or brothers
throughout their lives. This economic
disempowerment curtails their autonomy in
many aspects of their lives from employment and
education to reproductive decision-making and
the ability to escape situations of violence.
Women’s unremunerated productive work
Another limitation women face with respect to
employment and education is the overburden of
domestic responsibilities. However, data related
to productive activities not included in GDP are
very limited.
Unremunerated productive work can be seen as
an important informal substitute for social
protection systems, as women often assume the
household burden for responsibilities such as
childcare and caring for the elderly, finding
supplementary income to feed the family, and
providing education in circumstances where
social service provision is limited. The increase
in women’s household workload limits women’s
access to the paid economy. Time-use data that
illustrate this burden of unremunerated work on
women are sparse; however, for countries for
which it is available data demonstrate that
women often suffer from “time poverty” as
a result of such activities. For example, time-use
data from Kazakhstan (2006) indicate that
women spent an average of 6.3 hours a day on
domestic work in comparison with 3.6 hours for
men; 3.1 hours on paid work compared with
4.9 hours for men; 0.4 hours commuting
compared with 0.6 hours for men; and 5.7 hours
of free time compared with 6.3 hours for men
(both men and women spend 0.4 hours on study;
0.2 hours on personal care; and 7.9 hours on
sleep).3
The Bangkok Declaration on Beijing + 15 of
2009 expressed concern that “women continue
to bear the major responsibility for unpaid work,
particularly care giving work, and this contributes
to weaker labour market attachment for women,
weaker access to social security benefits and less
time for education/training, leisure and self-care
and political activities”.4 Current demographic
aging trends in the Asia-Pacific region are likely
to expand further these caring demands upon
women in the coming years.
Education
Disadvantage and discrimination against women
begins in childhood with girls’ limited access to
education. As the education information in this
Yearbook indicates, little progress has been made
in achieving gender equality with respect to
literacy; even as the region has moved towards
closing male-female educational gaps in terms of
school attendance. This implies that education
systems may still perpetuate gender stereotypes
and fail to prepare women adequately for equal
participation in the workplace. The lack of equal
access to quality education has lasting impact into
adulthood, affecting women’s rights and their
possibilities for empowerment. In addition,
improved education for women may also have
wide societal benefits as it correlates with the
ability of women to educate and prepare their
children.
Well-being and health
Gender norms, practices and power relations of
a society negatively affect other aspects of
women’s well-being – such as the acceptability
and prevalence of violence against women, lack
of access to reproductive health and family
planning services, and sex-preferential nutritional
distribution within the family. The physical
empowerment of women can be affected by, and
effect, the possibilities of engaging in society in
many different ways; for example: personal
mobility to access health services, education and
the labour market; psychological wellbeing and
self-esteem (including confidence to claim their
rights); as well as other aspects of life.
Violence against women
Violence against women and girls constitutes
a widespread violation of human rights as
well as a significant limitation to women’s
empowerment. Violence against women and
girls leads to death and disability; its exact incidence and prevalence is however difficult to
quantitatively measure (as a result of a lack of
reliable and comparable data from official
reporting mechanisms and surveys). While many
countries focus upon providing support for
women and girls who have experienced violence,
combating violence against women and girls in
the long term requires attention to preventative
measures and shifts in cultural and social norms
and practices as well as significant institutional
change. There have been many legislative
advances in Asian and Pacific countries, although
much remains to be done, especially regarding
effective implementation. On the basis of
available data, the index of legislation on violence
shows that Hong Kong, China is the only
economy with full legislation in all three areas of
gender-based violence; while the Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea, the Islamic Republic
of Iran and Afghanistan have no legislation in
place. Many countries have legislation being
planned, drafted or reviewed.
Reproductive rights
As well as not being subjected to violence,
women also need to be able to exercise their
rights to make choices regarding their own bodies
and family size, because reproductive decisions
can have far-reaching consequences for their
empowerment. Access to, and ability to use,
contraception is crucial in terms of both health
outcomes and women’s rights.
Figure I.55 – Index of legislation on the violence
against women in countries, Asia and the
Pacific, 2009*
* An index value of 0 indicates full legislation and an index of 1 indicates
no legislation.
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) – an international bill of rights for women
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), adopted in 1979
by the United Nations General Assembly, is often described as an international bill of rights for women. It defines
discrimination against women and sets the agenda for national action to end violations of women’s rights. An
important element of CEDAW is its affirmation of women’s reproductive rights, including the right to determine
the number and spacing of children and for equal access to family planning. The following table shows the current
status and the total number of reports each country has submitted to the CEDAW Committee on its progress in
implementing the convention.
CEDAW ratification and reporting, by country/area, Asia and the Pacific*
* Source for the text box: Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, Country Reports, States of submission and
consideration of reports submitted by States parties. Available from: www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/reports.htm.
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Women’s well-being and health throughout the life cycle
Reproductive rights play a crucial role in
women’s wellbeing and health. Although the
majority of the people living with HIV in Asia
and the Pacific are men, more than 2 million
women in the region have HIV. Evidence
suggests that many new infections in women
occur when wives are infected by their husbands.5
Therefore, it is clear that cultural and gender
norms on sex and sexuality that disempower
women, for example in terms of their ability to
negotiate sex and exposing them to violence, put
women at risk.6
The processes by which women’s physical
empowerment and well-being are affected can
also take more subtle forms and stem from
different types of societal and cultural
discrimination experienced throughout the
lifecycle, from birth to old age. This may include
female foeticide and infanticide due to son
preference; gender disparities for immunization;
disparities in child nutrition and healthcare; early
marriage; unequal access to education and
subsequent employment; and unequal access to
social protection. In the next 30 years, older
women will constitute the majority of older
persons because of their longer life spans resulting
in vulnerability to age-related health issues,
especially when social protection and formal
pensions are limited.
Politics and decision-making
One of the key means by which women can
address their current disempowerment is by
women’s leadership and participation in decisionmaking,
to increase the likelihood of their
interests being represented. Data on women’s
decision-making at individual and household
levels is difficult to obtain. Yet, within the third
Millennium Development Goal (MDG-3), the
existence of indicators to measure women’s
political leadership signifies international
visibility for this key area of women’s leadership
and decision-making.
It has become a global consensus that a “critical
mass” of 30% female representation in key
political decision-making positions is needed for
women to bring about significant and
meaningful change.7 However, women are still
underrepresented in national and local politics in
almost every Asia-Pacific country. Only, two
countries in Asia and the Pacific have reached the
30% threshold: Nepal and New Zealand. In the
46 countries with lower- or single-chamber
parliament data available for 2010, women
representatives comprised less than 10% in
20 countries. Of the 11 Pacific island developing
economies for which data were available, 5 had
no female members of parliament at all.
Figure I.56 – Women’s participation in national
parliaments, Asia and the Pacific, 1990 and
2010
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Women’s empowerment 
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