Determinants of Women Empowerment in Nepal: An OLS Analysis Using NLSS-IV Data

Abstract

Since 2000, there has been marked improvement in women's empowerment in Nepal, but not in all areas. This paper analyses the Nepal Living Standards Survey IV (NLSS-IV, 2021-2022) to address the questions of which individual, household and contextual factors are associated with women's empowerment, and whether the same factors are associated with empowerment across different domains or associated with different forms of empowerment. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions with heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors are computed using a sample of 4,287 women aged 18 years or older, regressing four different indices corresponding respectively to educational achievement, economic participation, asset ownership and use of facilities, plus an exploratory composite index. Education has a large effect on economic participation (β = 0.412, p < 0.001) but a small and insignificant effect on asset ownership (β = 0.089, p = 0.142). Living in urban areas exhibits the opposite pattern, with substantial premia for economic participation, asset ownership and facility access, but little impact on education. SCH women retain a large and significant disadvantage in economic empowerment and asset ownership even when education and household wealth are taken into account. Access to financial services is positively associated with economic empowerment but not with wealth. The implication is that a composite empowerment index masks domain-specific inequality: neither education leads to property ownership, nor financial access to wealth. Targeted reforms - assets-centred initiatives like changes in inheritance law, implementation of anti-discrimination policies and asset-building financial products - are likely to change empowerment levels more effectively than uniform measures.