Assessment of the role of household empowerment in alleviating participatory poverty among rural household of Pakistan

Household empowerment as the key to eradicate poverty incidence

“…The empowerment approach originates largely from feminist writings and grassroots organizations of the Third World people. The empowerment as a concept and grassroots strategy transcends integrative measures endeavoring only to provide an individual with the access to existing resources and programs to a more transformative or agenda‐setting project (Abrar‐ul‐haq, ).…”

“…Similarly, the empowerment is widely discussed in the existing literature. The empowerment is a representor of those who are the victims of social inequality, gender discrimination, social segregation, and marginalization (Abrar‐ul‐haq, ; Gutierrez, Parsons, & Cox, ). However, it was perceived as hurdle in analytical analysis and in the development of a logical concept to define empowerment as a complete process in spite of a temporary goal (Shahbaz, Naz, Umber, & Amir, ).…”

“…Moreover, the significance of rural household poverty is not normally understood, because the poor residing in urban areas are more vocal and visible than their rural counterparts in the remote areas where the current study was conducted. In many countries, it is also observed empirically that rural poverty is an important feature in overall depth and incidence of poverty (Abrar‐ul‐haq, ). Moreover, within the same country, among rural areas, the extent of poverty can vary devastatingly.…”

“…The earlier studies show that in Pakistan, the incidence of poverty was high in the 1960s and its extent was reduced during 1970–1980. Then, it started to increase again to its previous level in the 1990s; however, it experienced a declining trend again later in the 2000s (Abrar‐ul‐haq, ; Amjad & Kemal, ; Arif, Nazli, Haq, & Qureshi, ; Chaudhary, ; Government of Pakistan, ). However, according to World Bank (), it is difficult to justify the declining trend of poverty incidence in Pakistan as the macroeconomic indicators such as inflation, remittances, real wage rate, employment level, access to assets, and ownership are depicting different situations in the same period.…”

“…However, all such variables are only proxy variables for household empowerment; the research for a more appropriate and direct tool has focused on capturing the dimensions and measures of household empowerment. The current study used an index to measure the level of household empowerment which was developed by Abrar‐ul‐haq (). Nevertheless, the current study attempts to address the household empowerment and the rural poverty simultaneously.…”