Women’s empowerment has a great influence on health, nutrition, education, and the overall well-being of societies as well as of the children and households. This study investigates the effect of women’s empowerment on poverty reduction and focuses on household deprivation, in terms of education, health, and standard of living. Primary data was collected from 914 married women from rural areas of Bangladesh using a well-structured questionnaire and a random sampling technique. Descriptive statistics, logistic regression, and ordinary least squares models were used in this study. The results indicate that increased women’s access to education, asset ownership, decision-making power on children’s health and education, and access to medical facilities, have caused a significant decline in income poverty and multidimensional poverty. However, gender violence, taking resources against women’s will, and preventing women from working outside, have caused a considerable decline in per capita income and an increase in income poverty and multidimensional poverty. Overall, it is found that women’s empowerment has a great impact on the reduction of income poverty and multidimensional poverty in society. The findings of the study can assist and guide policymakers to initiate appropriate strategies for women’s empowerment to reducing poverty in Bangladesh while making progress towards other social and developmental goals.

Global discourses have advocated women's empowerment as a means to reduce their own's food insecurity, which is also key development challenges in Bangladesh. However, little empirical research has conducted on this issue, especially in the rural area of Bangladesh. Therefore, the present study was conducted to examine the relationship of six domains of women's empowerment with their food security in rural Bangladesh using a partial least square structural equation modelling approach. Our empirical analysis indicates that women's accesses to their legal and familial rights and decision‐making roles in households increase their bargaining power over the utilization of resources and to choices of food which significantly and negatively decrease their food insecurity. Moreover, information and communication technologies and infrastructure facilities also negatively and significantly associated with women's food insecurity. However, women's leadership has a negative but not significant effect on their food insecurity, as low self‐esteem rural women feel no ease in publicly addressing their inequalities. By understanding family composition from women's perceptions, the results from our research can assist policymakers to develop more suitable strategies to enhance the empowerment status of rural women and reduce their food insecurity.

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