Women's Empowerment, Population Dynamics, and Socioeconomic Development (2025)
Chapter: 1 Introduction
1
Introduction
The concepts of women’s empowerment, population dynamics, and socioeconomic development have been studied extensively from a variety of disciplines for decades, but attempts to reconcile these perspectives have been rare, particularly in terms of applying a holistic view to the relationships and dynamics. Consequently, consensus on the role of women’s empowerment in socioeconomic development remains lacking. This report describes the work of a diverse, multidisciplinary consensus committee charged with synthesizing the current state of knowledge and research strategies for examining the impact of women’s empowerment on a range of population dynamics and, in turn, on global socioeconomic development. The synthesis lays the empirical basis for recommendations to improve understanding of these important relationships.
This report builds on a prior study from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s (National Academies’) Committee on Population (CPOP), entitled Population Growth and Economic Development: Policy Questions (National Research Council, 1986). That report examined both the relationship between population growth and economic growth, focusing primarily on macroeconomic issues, and the role of government programs to reduce fertility beyond the provision of family planning services. Since that report, the population growth rate has declined in many parts of the world, and the challenges experienced across population scenarios have changed. Increasingly, researchers from a variety of disciplines have recognized the key role of women’s empowerment in socioeconomic development and have argued that women’s empowerment
warrants attention, regardless of its health and economic impacts (Desai, 2010; Duflo, 2012; Varkey et al., 2010).
Over the past few decades, a range of global women’s empowerment indices have been developed to guide research in this area. However, direct measures of women’s empowerment, especially specific aspects of empowerment, such as women’s agency, are not often included in impact studies. Global data collection at scale is also not routine (Yount et al., 2023). These challenges limit the ability to evaluate the impact of women’s empowerment on socioeconomic development and to easily harmonize available findings.
To explore the conceptual, methodological, and policy issues central to the interplay between women’s empowerment, family planning, fertility decline, and population and societal impacts, generally and in low-resource settings, CPOP organized a workshop in 2021 that led to the publication of Family Planning, Women’s Empowerment, and Population and Societal Impacts: Proceedings of a Workshop (National Academies, 2021). In this workshop, experts with a range of backgrounds discussed these issues, with particular emphasis on measurement challenges and limitations in data availability. They noted both an inadequacy of understanding regarding the role of women’s empowerment in observed global fertility decline and the need to understand whether and how women’s empowerment affects socioeconomic development.
CHARGE TO THE COMMITTEE
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation asked the National Academies to appoint a consensus study committee focused on advancing the state of knowledge on the impact of women’s empowerment and associated population dynamics on social and economic development. Given changes over the past few decades, including related to women’s status in low- and middle-income country (LMIC) settings, timing is opportune for a comprehensive study of these questions. The committee was tasked with developing a conceptual framework describing the complex interactions among women’s empowerment, population dynamics, and socioeconomic development. We were also asked to consider policy options, which include identifying evidence-based, multilevel levers for change, to improve women’s agency as it relates to development goals. The charge also directs the committee to highlight areas requiring further conceptualization and research. Box 1-1 shows the committee’s statement of task.
COMMITTEE APPROACH TO THE STUDY
To address the charge, the committee considered published evidence across a range of relevant topics and disciplines. This review examined
BOX 1-1
Statement of Task
An ad hoc committee of the National Academies will undertake a study that will review and assess what is known about the impact of women’s empowerment and associated population dynamics on global social and economic development. The study will develop a comprehensive conceptual framework, review the current state of knowledge, critically assess policy options, and set an agenda for future research and data collection; the study may provide recommendations related to these areas.
women’s empowerment frameworks and their constructs, which highlighted the centrality of agency within the empowerment process. We then focused on women’s agency as a critical multidimensional component of women’s empowerment and reviewed the empirical literature on the role of women’s agency and empowerment in population dynamics and socioeconomic development.
In addition to reviewing existing research, we also held a series of information-gathering sessions to delve into specific topics and to complement the committee’s expertise with additional input from a wide pool of experts. The general topics explored in these sessions included
- Emerging challenges and opportunities around women’s reproductive agency as an element of women’s empowerment;
- The role of social movements, such as feminist movements, in shaping policy; and
- Successes and challenges in the context of implementing policies that affect women’s empowerment.
The committee also benefited from additional in-depth research by supporting consultants and a research fellow. A historical overview of population control and family planning access programs was commissioned to provide additional background for our work.
We held a series of closed-session meetings to deliberate on the information gathered and the state of the science. Deliberations drew upon multidisciplinary perspectives and research methodologies and considered the socioecological model as a framework to examine multilevel factors of influence and impact. The socioecological model integrates the individual, family, community, and societal levels of influence in which development occurs. It is important for concepts associated with women’s empowerment,
such as agency and choice, to be considered at the levels of the individual, couple, family, and community; and for policies, at local, state, and national levels.
The socioecological model also recognizes the life course as embedded in changing contexts, including community and structural factors affecting behavior (Bronfenbrenner, 1975, 1986). We undertake this work from a life-course perspective—in other words, with the understanding that there are trajectories and inflection points as people move through life stages and events, grow, and change over time, and that these points are affected by moment in history, context, and culture (Hutchison, 2010). Applying a life-course perspective allows us to examine contextual exposures and access to resources as factors affecting agency and resultant outcomes during inflection points across life stages (Elder, 1995; Hitlin & Johnson, 2015; Institute of Medicine, 2001; Lee-Rife, 2010; Scrimshaw, 1978).
Given the focus of this study on women’s empowerment, population dynamics, and socioeconomic development, we use the life-course perspective to examine the life stages at which women experience major transitions and inflection points related to key areas of population dynamics (e.g., union and family formation) as well as key areas of socioeconomic development (e.g., economic positioning and social participation). While population dynamics and socioeconomic outcomes are relevant at all stages in the life course, this report focuses on outcomes that are especially likely to be affected by changes in women’s empowerment and could therefore be of particular interest from the perspective of programs and policies in this area.
When reviewing evidence, we considered research from a variety of social science and health disciplines, corresponding with the multidisciplinary, international expertise of committee members. The research reviewed is based on methods ranging from experimental to observational, including community-participatory and community-engaged research, and extends across national and multinational settings, with a focus on LMICs. The committee’s approach was not intended to be an in-depth systematic review of the rich literature on the range of relevant topics. Rather, we relied on our collective expertise and experience to identify the studies that most directly addressed the questions of interest on the basis of strong research designs. Given the report’s focus on the impacts of women’s empowerment, we prioritized findings from studies that demonstrated causal relationships—in other words, primarily randomized controlled trials but also other statistical approaches designed to produce causal inference from observational data. Where possible, we highlight existing research pointing to the causal effects of women’s empowerment on population dynamics and socioeconomic development, as well as causal influences on women’s agency as a lynchpin in the empowerment process.
We note that the relationships discussed are often bidirectional or otherwise interrelated, and the literature often discusses them as such. As a result, even though the committee’s focus was primarily on the impact of women’s empowerment and agency on population dynamics and socioeconomic development, we chose not to limit the discussion to these directional effects. Available findings and data that can shed light on understanding causality versus potential bidirectionality are noted.
In addition to highlighting causal findings, we also discuss qualitative research, which can reveal the nuances and context of social change through the voices and lived experiences of women, girls, and communities. The strength of qualitative research is in the added depth and detail it can provide. For the purposes of this report, we prioritized studies that have been particularly influential or insightful over the years.
One of our goals was to synthesize and comment on the strengths and limitations of existing evidence, as well as methodological challenges and limitations that may preclude an understanding of causal relationships. Prioritizing studies on the basis of the strength of the evidence also enabled us to organize the vast amount of literature into a report that highlights key gaps identified by the committee. We acknowledge that this approach means that studies from some geographic areas are more heavily represented in the discussion than others, and indeed, the need to replicate studies across diverse socioeconomic contexts is an important consideration and finding in the report. This approach also means that the report does not necessarily highlight the most recent research available in a particular area or on a particular topic.
Another goal for this study was to propose a comprehensive framework to guide research and policy. To ensure that a shared understanding of our foci—women’s empowerment, population dynamics, and socioeconomic development—informed the evidence review, we developed the working definitions described in Box 1-2, with adherence to standards of the field.
The report focuses on individuals who were assigned female sex at birth and who continue to identify as such, or who are indicated to be women in the studies we reviewed. It is also notable that current research is frequently based on data-collection procedures that rely on a proxy respondent’s report, or on interviewers recording male/female based on their interpretation of “gender presentation.” Furthermore, the report focuses on heterosexual unions because of the paucity of global evidence from lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and/or questioning, intersex, and other (LGBTQI+) persons, particularly from LMICs.
The report focuses on women of reproductive age, including adolescents, unless otherwise noted. Although older and younger individuals may be of reproductive age, available data tend to be limited to individuals between the ages of approximately 15 and 49 years. In addition, as discussed,
BOX 1-2
Working Definitions of Women’s Empowerment, Population Dynamics, and Socioeconomic Development for This Report
Empowerment is the expansion and safeguarding of an individual’s or group’s ability to make strategic life choices and to act on those choices to reach self-determined or collective goals.
Women’s empowerment is the application of empowerment (as defined above) to women and girls specifically, recognizing that women’s empowerment may occur in the context of restrictive gender norms and gender bias in structures and institutions that disadvantage cis-gender heterosexual women as well as LGBTQI+ individuals, relative to cis-gender heterosexual men. Women’s empowerment may be expressed or experienced differently across specific identities—for example, based on race/ethnicity, caste, class, and religion.
Agency is an individual’s or collective’s ability to act upon personal or shared aspirations toward the realization of self-determined or collectively determined goals. Agency is the component of empowerment that connects enabling resources and aspirations to achievements. It operates at multiple levels: individual, interpersonal, community, and societal.
Population dynamics include the growth, composition, and distribution of the population, and the contributing roles of fertility, mortality, and migration, either globally or in given geographic areas. Analyses of population dynamics are typically quantitative and consider factors affecting fertility, mortality, and migration from the individual to the population level.
Socioeconomic development is the process and achievement of social and economic advancement at the individual, household, community, and societal levels. This process includes improvements in standards of living, education, health, civil engagement, and state capacity.
SOURCE: Definitions developed by the committee based on existing literature.
these are stages of the life course where transition points of particular importance for population dynamics and socioeconomic development tend to be concentrated and can be affected by empowerment-promotion efforts. We acknowledge that limitations in the data and research represent major gaps in the evidence base to date and major challenges to fostering more inclusive research paradigms, programs, and policies.
The report also discusses challenges that arise from inconsistent use of terminology across disciplines (e.g., definitions of “empowerment” or “agency”). Unless otherwise noted, summaries of existing research use the terminology employed by the authors of the studies.
ORGANIZATION OF THE REPORT
This report presents the committee’s findings and recommendations from the study. The chapters are organized around the main elements of the committee’s charge. Chapter 2 provides an overview of existing frameworks of women’s empowerment and discusses their limitations and gaps. Chapter 3 presents a new conceptual framework, resulting from this committee’s work. The framework describes the interplay between women’s empowerment, population dynamics, and socioeconomic development, and highlights the key role of women’s agency in women’s empowerment. Chapter 4 reviews key indicators of population dynamics most relevant to women’s empowerment, including women’s agency, and discusses how women’s empowerment affects population dynamics at multiple levels. Chapter 5 discusses the literature on women’s empowerment and the impacts of empowerment on reproductive, maternal, and child healthcare as well as on women’s and children’s health outcomes. Chapter 6 reviews how women’s empowerment—through an increase in women’s agency—impacts socioeconomic development. Chapter 7 sheds further light on the empowerment process by reviewing programs and policy levers (or investments in enabling resources) that have direct measures of women’s agency. Chapter 8 summarizes the report’s key findings and offers recommendations to further elucidate the dynamic interplay between dimensions of women’s empowerment, population dynamics, and socioeconomic development, and to guide national and global priorities on these issues.
Additional background information is included in the report’s appendixes. Appendix A contains biographical sketches for the committee members. Appendix B summarizes key attributes of published frameworks of women’s empowerment, as a supplement to Chapter 2.
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