Female empowerment is growing
By: V-Dem Staff
Dec 10, 2014
One such case is Benin. With V-Dem’s Online Tools you can not only see how the empowerment developed over time, but also investigate what caused the changes with the drill-down option. The V-Dem female empowerment index captures, for example, open discussion of political issues, participation in civil society organizations, freedom of movement, freedom from forced labor, representation in the ranks of journalists, and an equal share in the overall distribution of power. In the 1940s there is a small increase in female empowerment and with the drill-down option it becomes clear that this was caused by an increase in women’s freedom from forced labor. Further improvement came in the 1950s when women’s ability to free engage in political speech improved as well. Things improved yet again with the democratic opening and new constitution in the 1990s. This led to further improvement in women’s ability to engage in free speech.
