Not Compromising: Using Experiments to Measure Women’s Power Presenter: Paulo Santos Co-author: Vilas J. Gobin Abstract
We propose an experimental approach to the measurement of women’s power that is explicitly influenced by classical notions of power. We use this approach and contrast it with traditional survey-based measures of empowerment, in the context of the evaluation of a poverty graduation program. Our analysis shows that the two measures are not correlated. We find a positive impact of participation in the poverty graduation program on empowerment when it is measured using the experimental indicator, but not when using traditional survey measures. Finally, we argue that the experimental indicator is better correlated with indicators of well-being usually associated with more empowered women.