Measuring Women’s Autonomy in Chad Using the Relative Autonomy Index

Journal article

Increasing women's voice and agency is widely recognized as a key strategy to reduce gender inequalities and improve health outcomes. Although recent studies have found associations between women's autonomy and a number of health outcomes, fundamental issues regarding adequate measurement of women's autonomy remain. The Relative Autonomy Index (RAI) provides a direct measure of motivational autonomy. It expresses the extent to which a woman faces coercive or internalized social pressure to undertake domain-specific actions. This contribution addresses a key critique of current measures of autonomy, which focus on decision making or ignore women's values. This study examines the measurement properties and added value of a number of domain-specific RAIs using new nationally representative data from the Republic of Chad. A striking finding is that women on average have less autonomous motivation in all eight domains compared to their male counterparts.

Authors: Vaz, A; Pratley, P; Alkire, S

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Routledge
• Journal: Feminist Economics
• Volume: 22
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 264-294
• Publication date: 2015-10-29
• DOI: 10.1080/13545701.2015.1108991
• EISSN: 1466-4372
• ISSN: 1354-5701
• Keywords: empowerment; social indicators; agency