ABSTRACT
The issue of women empowerment has been one of the most fundamental debates in gender and development literature. While some studies mainly focus on the relationship among women empowerment and gender equality (e.g. Yenilmez, 2017) or (un)employment problems (e.g. Memiş & Antonopoulos, 2010), there is still room for the further discussion of women empowerment in the time of crisis from different aspects. As Elson (2010) mentioned in her study “these crisis are gendered” and “the impact of these crisis is gendered, too”, thus, we need to discuss women empowerment not only from an economic perspective but also from a societal perspective. Employed or not employed, as a pioneer people in the society, women have so many responsibilities and as far as we know these responsibilities have been increasing in the aftermath of the crisis. Therefore, it will be crucial to discuss and reveal the conspicuous facts about women empowerment in the time of crisis. Particularly, the latest financial crisis affected men and women differently and women of course became more vulnerable to those economic shocks. In the first part of the chapter, therefore, we will discuss the reasons and the various phases of the latest global economic crisis which began in 2008. Afterwards, we will consider the economic and societal consequences of the crisis in connection with women empowerment. Because of its multidimensional consequences, the crisis deserves to be discussed from many aspects. Within this concept, some selected developed and developing country examples will be examined in the context of women’s employment, wages and microcredit programs. Lastly, we will conclude the study with some policy implications and recommendations.
