Women’s empowerment revisited: a case study from Bangladesh

This article explores the changing dimensions of women’s empowerment over time in three Bangladesh villages where one of the authors has been conducting research since 1991. The article discusses theoretical issues related to the measurement of women’s empowerment, and describes findings from a recent study in the villages exploring the current salience of indicators developed for a 1992 survey. In the article we discuss the types of social, economic, and political change that affect the measurement of women’s empowerment; propose and explain a new set of indicators for the rural Bangladesh setting; and discuss implications for measuring women’s empowerment in other settings.