Women's empowerment and nutrition

Abstract

Women play key roles in food systems, yet continue to face persistent disadvantages in terms of low decision-making power and limited access to goods, services, and markets. Discrimination against women is often deeply ingrained in social norms, policies, and institutions. Widely observed gender gaps are not only unfair; they also undermine broader sustainability objectives. Extensive evidence shows that women's empowerment contributes to productivity, efficiency, and broader social welfare gains. We review and synthesize the literature on links between women's empowerment and nutrition, focusing on rural households in Africa and Asia. We analyze advances in the measurement of women's empowerment, discuss strengths and limitations of existing metrics, and summarize the broad empirical evidence showing that women's empowerment is positively associated with dietary quality and nutrition. Further, we develop a conceptual framework, highlighting key mechanisms of the empowerment-nutrition relationship, including women's bargaining power, control over income, and time allocation. Using this framework and examples from different countries, we show that development initiatives, such as promoting agricultural commercialization and women's off-farm employment, can involve tradeoffs, sometimes resulting in undesirable empowerment and/or nutrition outcomes. Such tradeoffs need to be properly understood and addressed through gender-transformative policies. We conclude by discussing policy and research implications.