Challenges and Opportunities for Urban Women’s Economic Empowerment

Rapid urbanization creates a range of opportunities and barriers for women to achieve economic growth and prosperity. This brief examines the unique challenges that each pillar of the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity initiative (W-GDP) must address for women in cities and what policies USAID and governments might pursue to improve women’s access to cities’ economic opportunities.

The ongoing global shift in human settlement toward urban areas, from 30% of world population in 1950 to 55% in 2019, has caused major changes in social and economic lives of its inhabitants.1 From now until 2050, the UN estimates that the world’s urban population will expand by 2.5 billion, i.e. more than 1.5 million people will be added to cities every week, the vast majority in developing countries. Because nearly half of these new urban residents will be women, the new front in the struggle for women’s equality and empowerment in international development is in cities.

Read the blog about this brief: Women’s economic empowerment to make the most of urbanization

At their core, cities are “comprised of multiple overlapping systems” that bring people together and can propel upwards social mobility for all residents, particularly vulnerable groups such as women and the poor.2 If handled well, this concentration of human talent could spur job growth and economic development, improving women’s participation in the economy and consequently, their empowerment. But how urbanization impacts burdens on women’s time is complicated: while in theory women have greater access to jobs within a shorter commute distance which improves opportunities for upward economic and social mobility, they could also experience the loss of traditional communal support for care responsibilities which could make it more difficult to work outside home. For policymakers, this poses the challenge of designing and implementing policies supporting gender equality so the benefits of urbanization for women can outweigh associated costs.

Through its programming, USAID works to secure and strengthen women’s access to and protections in urban labor markets as a way to unlock their potential, promote economic empowerment and gender equality, and help countries achieve transformative economic self-reliance. A number of policies support these efforts, including the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative (W-GDP), the Women’s Economic Empowerment and Entrepreneurship Act, the US Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence Globally, USAID’s Journey to Self-Reliance, and USAID’s Gender and Female Empowerment Policy.

This brief will explore and highlight the uniquely urban considerations within women’s economic empowerment as it relates to the key concepts in W-GDP. The W-GDP is the first whole-of- government initiative that funds projects enabling women to succeed in the economies of the developing world.3 The initiatives funded all center around three core pillars:

  • Women Prospering in the Workforce: Advancing workforce development andvocational training to give women the skills and training necessary to secure quality jobs.
  • Women Succeeding as Entrepreneurs: Promoting women’s entrepreneurship andproviding women with access to capital, markets, technical assistance and networks.
  • Women’s Enabled in the Economy: Striving to remove the legal, regulatory and culturalbarriers that constrain women from fully and freely participating in the economy.

In this context, the W-GDP offers a framework for investing in interventions that create more conducive conditions for women to add their talents to the labor force and business realm outside the home. Given the worldwide demographic, economic and cultural shift toward urban areas, W- GDP’s success in harnessing change hinges on what happens in cities around the world.