Women+Empowerment+and+Economic+Development

Mehra, R. (1997). "Women, Empowerment, and Economic Development."Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Vol 554, pp. 136-149



This article asserts that economic programs tend not to view women as integral to economic growth in the developing world. The arguments maintained by Mehra are consistent with Spring (2009) as both authors insist that women are present in the informal sectors of the economy, but maintain a relatively small presence in the formal sector of the developing world. Furthermore, the author notes the failure of many projects geared toward correcting imbalances, because their motivations were welfare and not development. Mehra concludes that the programmes that have made progress are those operating on the premise that women are fundamental to economic development. What we can gain from this article that relates to our work in partnership with CARE Canada is not only an understanding of the failures of programmes that have attempted to empower women, but also the reasons behind why CARE pursues the initiatives that it does.