Factors associated with women’s economic, personal and socio-cultural empowerment: analysis of 2022 Kenya demographic and health survey
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Date
2025
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
BMC Women's Health
Abstract
Background: The importance of women empowerment has been conceptualized not only as fundamental and core to fulfilling human rights, but also a basic requirement for enhancing women’s contributions to the development process in their national economies. The concept of women empowerment can consider several aspects of a woman including at personal, economic, social-cultural or community, and multidimensional levels. Kenya has implemented several policies and legal frameworks to support women’s empowerment. However, there is limited up-to-date research that provides an in-depth examination of the factors associated with the women’s empowerment in Kenya, for the four different dimensions of empowerment. This paper explores the determinants of women empowerment among married women in Kenya.
Methods: We analyzed secondary data from the 2022 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey. For the final analysis, we used a weighted sample of 18,312 currently married women. All frequencies and percentages in the results section are weighted. At the multivariate stage of analysis, the effect of explanatory variables on women empowerment was investigated using multilevel mixed effects logistic regression model. We computed adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) with 95% confidence interval (95% CI). Variables with a P-value of less than 0.05 in the multi variable binary logistic regression analysis were considered statistically significant predictors of the outcome variable.
Results: We observed a high proportion of women empowered at a personal (74%) and social-cultural levels (81%) while low proportions of 22% and 18% are empowered at the economic and multidimensional scales respectively. Out of all women who are economically empowered, larger proportions are also empowered at the personal (87%) and social-cultural (92%) scales, while 80% are empowered in all the three dimensions of empowerment. Women’s characteristics such as being older, attaining formal education, being in employment, and having an employed partner were positively associated with women’s empowerment. On the other hand, women who live in rural areas and those who justify norms associated with beating were negatively associated with women’s empowerment.
Conclusions: Finds from this study show that economic empowerment plays an important role in the formation of personal and social-cultural empowerment. There is therefore a need for policy reforms to improve the economic conditions of the households and to give special emphasis on the education of women, promote women’s employment opportunities and access to resources.
Description
Keywords
Women empowerment, Personal empowerment, Economic empowerment, Socio-cultural empowerment, Married women
Citation
Nabimanya, B., Mayanja, E., Kyarikunda, M., Nkamusiima, D., Kagarura, W. R., Kiwuwa-Muyingo, S., & Kadengye, D. T. (2025). Factors associated with women’s economic, personal and socio-cultural empowerment: analysis of 2022 Kenya demographic and health survey. BMC Women's Health, 25(1), 1-11.