Women Empowerment and Its Impact on Economic Development in Selected Arab Countries

Abstract

Economic development literature contains two views, the first one consider women's empowerment is pre-condition to achieve economic development, the second believes that achieving economic development is the prerequisite to women's empowerment. Arab countries have experienced a relative development in indicators of women's educational, economic, health and political empowerment, the question is whether this improvement in women's situation has affected economic development. Or more development, is a precondition for women's empowerment. This research attempts to discover the impact of the development of women's empowerment indicators on economic development in Arab countries by using time series data for ten Arab countries for the period 1990-2015. The use of time series data is to overcome the limitations of using cross-sectional data or panel data.The research has found a significant impact of women empowerment on economic development, which calls for more efforts in the development of women's empowerment indicators in these countries.