Endogenous gender power: The two facets of empowerment*

A large body of evidence suggests that women's empowerment, both within the household and in politics, benefits to children and has the potential to promote economic development. Nevertheless, the existing interactions between these two facets of empowerment have not been considered thus far. The aim of the present paper is to fill this gap by proposing a theoretical framework in which women's bargaining power within both the private sphere and the public sphere is endogenous. We show that the mutual interplay between the evolution of women's voice in the family and in society may lead to the emergence of multiple equilibria and path-dependency phenomena. We also discuss policy interventions that are the most suitable to promote women's empowerment when its multidimensional nature is taken into account.