Determinants of Women’s Empowerment in Kenya: A Logistic Regression Approach.

This study uses ‘basic individual and household characteristics’ to estimate the probability of a woman's empowerment. Specifically, it will use the logistic regression model to analyse the determinants of women's empowerment to understand the relationship between various factors and the likelihood of women achieving empowerment. The study will utilise the 2014 Kenya Demographic Household Survey (KDHS) data. The various domains of empowerment will be considered. The domains identified in the Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis will be assigned equal weights, which will then be distributed equally among each of their constituent indicators. A woman will be considered to be empowered if her score is more than half the total weighted score and not empowered otherwise. In the second analysis stage, basic household and individual characteristics of women (independent variables) will be used to estimate the likelihood of achieving empowerment using logistics regression. After fitting the model, post-estimation analysis will be carried out. Specifically, the Hosmer-Lemeshow test will be used to measure the model's goodness of fit. The study found that the odds of a woman being empowered are 175 times higher if she has ever attended school compared to a woman who has never attended school if all other factors are held constant. Women who have attained the primary level of education are much less likely (98% less likely) to be empowered than women who have attained university education. Women who listen to the radio at least once a week are 2.51 times more likely to be empowered than those who do not listen to the radio. Women in the richest wealth quintile are 2.03 times more likely to be empowered than those in the poorest. Women falling in the poorer wealth quintile category are 27% more likely to be empowered than women in the poorest, with all other factors constant