IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jecomi/v8y2020i2p45-d366495.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Maleeha Mohammed Zaaf Al-Qahtani

    (College of Education, Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Dilam 16213, Saudi Arabia)

  • Tarek Tawfik Yousef Alkhateeb

    (Department of Marketing, College of Business Administration, Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj 11942, Saudi Arabia
    Department of Economics, Kafr Elshiekh University, Kafr Elshiekh 33511, Egypt)

  • Haider Mahmood

    (Department of Finance, College of Business Administration, Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj 11942, Saudi Arabia)

  • Manal Abdalla Zahed Abdalla

    (College of Education, Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj 11942, Saudi Arabia)

  • Thikkryat Jebril Obaid Talalah Qaralleh

    (College of Education, Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj 11942, 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.

Suggested Citation

  • Maleeha Mohammed Zaaf Al-Qahtani & Tarek Tawfik Yousef Alkhateeb & Haider Mahmood & Manal Abdalla Zahed Abdalla & Thikkryat Jebril Obaid Talalah Qaralleh, 2020. "The Role of the Academic and Political Empowerment of Women in Economic, Social and Managerial Empowerment: The Case of Saudi Arabia," Economies, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-19, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jecomi:v:8:y:2020:i:2:p:45-:d:366495
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/8/2/45/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/8/2/45/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bargain, Olivier & Boutin, Delphine & Champeaux, Hugues, 2019. "Women's political participation and intrahousehold empowerment: Evidence from the Egyptian Arab Spring," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    2. Yasmin, Nazia & Grundmann, Philipp, 2020. "Home-cooked energy transitions: Women empowerment and biogas-based cooking technology in Pakistan," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    3. Dr.Thresiamma Varghese, 2011. "Women Empowerment in Oman: A study based on Women Empowerment Index," Far East Journal of Psychology and Business, Far East Research Centre, vol. 2(3), pages 37-53, February.
    4. Naeem Akram, 2018. "Women’s Empowerment in Pakistan: Its Dimensions and Determinants," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 140(2), pages 755-775, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mahmood, Haider & Chaudhary, A. R., 2013. "Impact of FDI on Income Inequality in Pakistan," MPRA Paper 109460, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Abu Elnasr E. Sobaih & Ahmed E. Abu Elnasr, 2024. "Challenges to Cracking the Glass Ceiling among Saudi Women in the Tourism Industry," Tourism and Hospitality, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-22, March.
    3. Ajay Singh & Harman Preet Singh & Fakhre Alam & Vikas Agrawal, 2022. "Role of Education, Training, and E-Learning in Sustainable Employment Generation and Social Empowerment in Saudi Arabia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-25, July.
    4. Al-Qahtani, Maleeha Mohammed Zaaf & Alkhateeb, Tarek Tawfik Yousef & Mahmood, Haider & Abdalla, Manal Abdalla Zahed & Mawad, Ghada Shihata Ebrahim & Alkhatib, Maha Ahmed Hussein, 2020. "Exploring the Level of Managerial, Political, Academic, Economic and Social Women Empowerment in Saudi Arabia," MPRA Paper 109447, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Rasis Alanazi & Claire Alkouatli, 2023. "Sources of Wellbeing Amongst Saudi Arabian Women Academic Leaders: An Explorative Study," Societies, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-14, April.
    6. Batara Surya & Syafri Syafri & Hadijah Hadijah & Baharuddin Baharuddin & Andi Tenri Fitriyah & Harry Hardian Sakti, 2020. "Management of Slum-Based Urban Farming and Economic Empowerment of the Community of Makassar City, South Sulawesi, Indonesia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-42, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jules Gazeaud & Victor Stephane, 2023. "Productive Workfare? Evidence from Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Program," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(1), pages 265-290, January.
    2. Amjad Ali & Marc Audi & Chan Bibi & Yannick Roussel, 2021. "The Impact of Gender Inequality and Environmental Degradation on Human Well-being in the Case of Pakistan: A Time Series Analysis," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 11(2), pages 92-99.
    3. Yang Liu & Muhammad Khalid Anser & Khalid Zaman, 2021. "Ecofeminism and Natural Resource Management: Justice Delayed, Justice Denied," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-21, June.
    4. Han, Wenjing & Zhang, Xiaoling & Zhang, Zhengfeng, 2019. "The role of land tenure security in promoting rural women’s empowerment: Empirical evidence from rural China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 280-289.
    5. Felipe González & Magdalena Larreboure, 2021. "The Impact of the Women’s March on the U.S. House Election," Documentos de Trabajo 560, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile..
    6. Muhammad Ahmar & Fahad Ali & Yuexiang Jiang & Mamdooh Alwetaishi & Sherif S. M. Ghoneim, 2022. "Households’ Energy Choices in Rural Pakistan," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-23, April.
    7. Komal Urooj & Tusawar Iftikhar Ahmad & Muhammad Azhar Bhatti & Altaf Hussain, 2022. "Women Empowerment in Pakistan: Multilevel Measurements, Spatial Differences, and Contributing Factors," iRASD Journal of Economics, International Research Alliance for Sustainable Development (iRASD), vol. 4(3), pages 480-499, September.
    8. Frank Adusah-Poku & Samuel Adams & Kwame Adjei-Mantey, 2023. "Does the gender of the household head affect household energy choice in Ghana? An empirical analysis," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(7), pages 6049-6070, July.
    9. Ragui Assaad & Hanan Nazier & Rasha Ramadan, 2015. "Empowerment is a Community Affair: Community Level Determinants of Married Women's Empowerment in Egypt," Working Papers 959, Economic Research Forum, revised Oct 2015.
    10. Zhu, Huanyu & Ma, Wanglin & Vatsa, Puneet & Zheng, Hongyun, 2023. "Clean energy use and subjective and objective health outcomes in rural China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    11. Shi, Xinjie & Cui, Liu & Huang, Zuhui & Zeng, Pei & Qiu, Tongwei & Fu, Linlin & Jiang, Qiang, 2023. "Impact of internal migration on household energy poverty: Empirical evidence from rural China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 350(C).
    12. Pascal L. Ghazalian, 2022. "The effects of the Arab Spring on female labour force participation in the MENA region," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(4), pages 869-900, October.
    13. Thibault Lemaire, 2020. "Phillips in A Revolution: Unemployment and Prices in Early 21st Century Egypt," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-03948605, HAL.
    14. Konte, Maty & Osei Kwadwo, Victor & Zinyemba, Tatenda, 2019. "Women's political and reproductive health empowerment in Africa: A literature review," MERIT Working Papers 2019-044, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    15. Ma, Wanglin & Zheng, Hongyun & Gong, Binlei, 2021. "Household Energy Choice for Cooking: Do Rural Income Growth and Ethnic Difference Play a Role?," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 314990, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    16. Lecoutere, Els & Spielman, David J. & Van Campenhout, Bjorn, 2023. "Empowering women through targeting information or role models: Evidence from an experiment in agricultural extension in Uganda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    17. Jaime De Pablo Valenciano & Juan Milán-García & Juan Uribe-Toril & María Angustias Guerrero-Villalba, 2021. "Rural Development from a Gender Perspective: The Case of Women Farmers in Southern Spain," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-13, January.
    18. Elwasila S. E. Mohamed, 2022. "Female Human Capital and Economic Growth in Sudan: Empirical Evidence for Women’s Empowerment," Merits, MDPI, vol. 2(3), pages 1-23, August.
    19. Astghik Mavisakalyan & Anu Rammohan, 2021. "Female autonomy in household decision-making and intimate partner violence: evidence from Pakistan," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 255-280, March.
    20. Yasmin, Nazia & Grundmann, Philipp, 2020. "Home-cooked energy transitions: Women empowerment and biogas-based cooking technology in Pakistan," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jecomi:v:8:y:2020:i:2:p:45-:d:366495. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.