The Role of the Academic and Political Empowerment of Women in Economic, Social and Managerial Empowerment: The Case of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Women may be considered to have hidden, unutilized potential for the economy and society, if not utilized at their full capacity, i.e., with effective educational, social and political policies. Allowing women to participate fully in an economy may contribute to the sustainable development of the country in question. The empowerment of women may be accelerated if women are educated for this purpose; as a result, the political authorities in Saudi Arabia have proposed a comprehensive framework to empower women. The empowerment of women is essential in the academic sector to develop educational policies for women’s capacity-building. The empowerment of women in the political process is also very important, so they can suggest appropriate policies, rules and laws that favor the empowerment of women in all sectors of the economy and society. The present research aims at testing the effects of academic and political empowerment on the economic, social and managerial empowerment of women, and opens a new horizon of debate in the practical and theoretical domain of female empowerment in Saudi Arabia. To this end, we utilized structural equation modeling due to the endogenous nature of relationships among the hypothesized variables. Perception-based data were collected on the political, academic, economic, social and managerial empowerment of women through a well-structured questionnaire. The data were collected during the period from October 2019 to January 2020 through a simple random sampling method. Then, we tested the direct effect of political empowerment, and its indirect effects through academic empowerment, on the economic, social and managerial empowerment of women. We found that political empowerment has a positive direct effect on economic and managerial empowerment, but an insignificant effect on social empowerment. Further, political empowerment has a positive direct effect on academic empowerment, which, in turn, has positive effects on economic, social and managerial female empowerment. Moreover, these indirect effects are found to be magnitudes larger than the direct effects of political empowerment. This study recommends improving the economic, social and political status of women through political and academic policies, to accelerate sustainable development.

Assessing the Impact of Microfinance Services at Individual Level: A Comparative Study of Women Empowerment in Pakistan

“…Group means (p < .05) were found with statistical difference so null hypothesis is rejected and alternate hypothesis is accepted, which states that microfinance loans participation results in improvement of economic empowerment than non-participation. The results contradict with previous study (6) however, our findings are in line with past studies who found that microfinance could help woman empowerment if knowledge, networks and jobs are provided to female (25,29,31,32,(41)(42)(43)(44)(45) . These results can be shown by graphical presentation in Figure 3 .…”

“…The Sig (2-tailed) value is .003, which shows that participation is associated with a statistical larger mean for employment generation than non-participation. The results can be supported by past studies (33,42) where researchers found that political empowerment has positive direct impact on female economics well being and indirectly female economics environment improved by academic empowerment. Thus, Table 4 shows the difference between participant and non-participant groups 'ownership of property and assets with mean difference 1.09.…”

Role of Education, Training, and E-Learning in Sustainable Employment Generation and Social Empowerment in Saudi Arabia

“…Academic empowerment of women has an indirect effect on their economic, social, and managerial status, and a positive direct effect on political empowerment. Women's economic, social, and political status can be managed by designing a suitable academic and political framework [68]. Salloum et al [69] defined the factors that affect students' learning in higher education.…”

Women Empowerment in Tourism and Hospitality Sector in Saudi Arabia

“…Further, the respondents think that the negative attitudes towards Saudi women's empowerment in the tourism and hospitality sector will change and weaken in the future. These findings consist of (Al-Qahtani et al 2020). The change in the Saudi families' mindset perhaps refers to two reasons.…”

“…Consequently, women entering the workforce environment, such as hotels and restaurants, is low (Marmenout & Lirio, 2014), particularly with the limitation of jobs that are suitable and required by Saudi women and their families. Until a few years ago, the isolation of women has meant that women prefer to work in environments that are conventionally held by women, such as teaching (Al-Qahtani et al 2020), nursing, and banking sector. Indeed, the main reason behind the low participation rate of women in other sectors is not because lack of interest; instead, due to a shortage in job opportunities, cultural issues, and regulations.…”