Abstract
Overcoming gender inequalities in a society with strong patriarchal bases, such as the Brazilian one, has women’s empowerment as one of its central elements. Given its importance for the transformation of the social role of women, it is essential to discuss promotion, strengthening and measurement actions. To support this debate, the construction of synthetic indexes of empowerment has been gaining prominence in the literature, which is still underexplored in Brazil. This study contributes to fill this gap. Using data from the 2006 National Survey of Demography and Health of Children and Women (PNDS), the objectives were: to propose and calculate two synthetic indexes of women’s empowerment, which reflect economic, domestic and psychological dimensions; and with these indexes, to characterize the situation in Brazil according to locational and individuals attributes and participation in the Bolsa Família Program (PBF). The evidence suggests empowerment as a multidimensional character, the importance of work and other personal and locational attributes and possible effects of the PBF on the economic and domestic dimensions of its beneficiaries’s empowerment.
Key words
Women’s empowerment; Indexes; Bolsa Família Program