Measuring women's empowerment: Rural-urban comparison in the Ecuadorian Andes

The research aimed to analyze the levels of female empowerment by comparing rural and urban parishes in the Canton of Latacunga, which is part of the province of Cotopaxi in the Ecuadorian Andes. The methodology proposed by Hernández & García (2008) was applied to a sample of 384 women over 15 years of age, of whom 151 reside in rural areas and 233 in urban areas. The instrument was composed of two parts: the initial one associated with questions on socio-demographic components, and the second with 34 reactive ones on the perception of empowerment, with four possible answers on a Likert-type scale. The levels of empowerment were analyzed in both, urban and rural areas, validating the possible existence of statistically significant differences. In addition, the factor analysis methodology was used to group the approaches into dimensions. It was possible to validate the idea of a higher level of empowerment in the urban area (96.67) compared to the rural sector (93.46). However, in both cases they are medium, with a statistically significant difference of 1%. Secondly, the results related to the factors into which the empowerment reagents could be grouped allowed for extracting of seven dimensions associated with security, self-esteem, boldness, equality, independence, external influences, and leadership. These factors presented different behaviors between both study areas, being superior in the urban environment – except for boldness, which was greater in the rural area, and external influences, which presented similar values. External influences score low, security and independence are in the middle ranges, while social value, equality and leadership are at the upper end of the proposed scales. Therefore, women consider that their work and effort are recognized socially or, at least, by their families.