Women’s empowerment and development of the nonprofit sector

Themudo (2009) found a correlation between women’s empowerment and the nonprofit sector’s development and argued the need for a gender theory. However, an accurate gender theory cannot be determined without understanding the direction of this correlation and causality. We first test a correlation between women empowerment and development, and find that women’s economic empowerment (n=3428) and women’s political empowerment (n=50) are both positively correlated with nonprofit development. Next, Granger Causality tests (1975-2013, n=39) were used to determine if women’s political empowerment causes nonprofit development or if a more developed nonprofit sector results in more women’s empowerment. When development was defined as the total number of nonprofits, women’s empowerment Granger Caused development but development did not Granger Cause women’s empowerment. However, when development was defined by Average Revenue per nonprofit, Granger Causality tests presented evidence for a circular relationship with Women’s empowerment causing development and development causing empowerment.