Impact of Women's Empowerment on Green Economic Growth and Vulnerability to Climate Change

Abstract

This research paper analyzes the impact of women’s empowerment (WE) on green economic growth (GEG) and vulnerability to climate change (VCC) in South Asian countries for the period 1995-2023. This article contributes to the literature on the factors that influence GEG and VCC, and the significance of gender in adaptive policy. The econometric analysis based on the Cross-sectional Autoregressive Distributed Lag (CS-ARDL) model’s co-integration technique shows that (i) WE along with its components (women’s civil empowerment, social empowerment, political empowerment, and economic empowerment) reduces VCC and increases GEG via breaking barriers for women through diversity and inclusivity. (ii) The effect of WE on VCC is most pronounced by the notion of gender equality in climate adaptation (iii) The effect of WE on GEG is most pronounced by women’s leadership, mentoring, networking in multidisciplinary activities, and female human capital utilization through women’s entrepreneurial skills. Dumitrescu-Hurlin Granger causality test and Westerlund cointegration test have been used to explore causality and long-run cointegration among modeled variables. Policy implications are formulated on how a policy agenda, both regional and global, can be developed to promote climate resilience and GEG by promoting WE in the adaptive policy and decision-making processes.