Gender, social norms, and women's economic empowerment [Chapter from Women’s Economic Empowerment: Insights from Africa and South Asia]

Social norms are increasingly recognised as significant barriers to women’s economic empowerment (WEE), even where progressive laws have been enacted. Although the Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women (GrOW) programme did not specifically focus on norms, it generated a wide set of insights on social norm-related barriers to and enablers of WEE, with a particular focus on women’s access to assets, employment, and entrepreneurship. This chapter draws on the findings of more than 50 research outputs from GrOW-supported studies and on a rapid search and analysis of wider literature on social and gender norms and WEE.