Giving Compass' Take:

• Chelsea Follett argues that female empowerment is a benefit of economic freedom because poverty disproportionately affects women. 

• Is this a complete enough picture, or do other cultural and historical considerations need to be made? 

• Find out why microfinance alone fails to empower women. 

The truth is that aid has never lifted a single country out of poverty and in some cases even hinders international development. Haiti is famously host to over 10,000 aid NGOs, but the inpouring of charity has perversely harmed local industries and led to a cycle of dependence that worsened poverty.

As we know, poverty renders women particularly vulnerable.

Gender inequality declines as poverty declines, so the condition of women improves more than that of men with development.

Letting women achieve greater economic clout enables them to lobby for social change, from which flows political and legal change. Milton Friedman stated that “economic freedom is … an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom”. In some countries, women are still not even legally allowed to pursue paid employment without spousal permission. As my colleague Guillermina Sutter-Schneider notes, “Gender equality under the law improves as countries become more economically free.”

Read the full article on female empowerment by Chelsea Follett at Cato Institute.