school, and if she makes that choice, does her daughter actually attend school? If an outcome needs explaining, the ME framework suggests collecting data on assets and institutions as these are the factors most strongly associated with empowerment.

Taken from empirical work on inclusion in local elected bodies in India, box 3 illustrates the complex relationships between assets and opportunity structure.

- 1.4 Where Empowerment Takes Place—Domains and Levels

Using agency and opportunity structure to frame analysis of empowerment is helpful, but leads to two further questions. First, does a person’s capacity to make effective choices vary according to _what_ he or she is doing? Second, does empowerment vary according to the _level_ at which a person is acting? As box 3 illustrates, the answer to both questions is yes.

# **Box 3.  The Importance of Assets and Opportunity Structure to Effective Political Choice in India**

[Elected] representatives who are landless participate [in local elected body meetings] to a significantly lesser extent than those who own some land. As the landless are dependent economically, they are therefore less likely to raise dissenting opinions against their potential employers in the village—a conclusion that is also supported by case study data. Education and access to information also significantly associate with participation among elected representatives. Every additional year of education tends on average to raise representatives’ participation by more than two-and-a-half percentage points. A representative who has ten years of education scores on average 27 percentage points higher on this scale compared to another who has no formal education. Similarly, higher access to information is associated with greater participation among representatives by almost three percentage points, on average, for each additional source of information that they consult.

Respondents stated that individual benefits [from the elected body—the Panchayat] could be accessed only by people who had a relationship with the Sarpanch’s [president’s] family. Such relationships were based on frequent labor work for the Sarpanch and kin, purchasing goods from shops owned by them, and voting in their favor. A scheduled tribe [low social status] wardpanch said that he had no powers, but that he “and other wardpanches have to go along with whatever the Patidars (the caste group of the Sarpanch) decide in the Panchayat as many of them are dependent on the Patidars for labor.... Many village people are dependent on the Patidars for their livelihoods.” The people who feel that they are excluded from the individual benefits of the Panchayat say they lack the awareness of what to do to change the situation and do not know to whom they should turn outside the Panchayat.

_Source:_ Alsop, Sjoblom, and Krishna 2001.

An Indian woman will experience a form of empowerment when she is trying to exercise choice over domestic resources within the household different from that which she will experience when in a bank trying to access a loan. Her experiences will also differ according to whether she is trying to operate in her village, at a market or office located at a distance from her village, or in a capital city.<sup>13</sup> These added complexities in the

> 13 In this example, one Indian woman may well experience different degrees of empowerment from another. These differences can largely be explained by assets—such as education, information, and social capital—and opportunity structure—such as social norms of behavior associated with caste and gender, or formal rules giving her access to loans, markets, or services.

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