Women’s political empowerment and health outcomes: a global scoping review

Empowerment is defined as the process of bringing individuals or groups who have been denied choice into the decision-making process (Kabeer, 1999). Women’s empowerment refers to a process of increasing self-reliance, expanding choice, gaining control over resources, and participating in decision-making (Rowlands, 1995). Empowering women has been presented as a key strategy for advancing health equity, especially for infant, child, and women's health outcomes (Kar et al., 1999). Addressing women’s political empowerment in health-related research is particularly important. Women's political empowerment, broadly defined, is a process of expanding women's assets, capabilities, and authority to achieve political equality with men, incorporating individual factors (e.g., knowledge, access), community elements (e.g., mobilization, local roles), and macro-level structures (e.g., national elections, lobbies) (Alexander et al., 2016). From a systems perspective, women’s political empowerment influences health at individual, community, and structural levels, by enhancing women's roles as mothers, caregivers, role models, and change agents (Besnier, 2020). As women’s political empowerment refers to a process, its effects unfold over time (Sundström et al., 2017). Some pathways linking women’s political empowerment to health outcomes may be relatively long and indirect. For example, greater opportunities for civic participation allow women to define and advocate for collective preferences and goals (Dahlum et al. 2022). This can help ensure that information about the issues affecting women’s lives reaches decision-makers and influences policy priorities and implementation (Mastracci, 2017). Women’s participation in political processes may also contribute to improved governance, more responsive policies, and broader social changes such as greater democratic accountability, economic development, and educational opportunities (Hessami & Fonseca, 2020; Hornset & Soysa. 2021). Other pathways may be shorter and more direct. For instance, the expansion of rights can increase women’s access to and control over resources, opportunities, and their own bodies, which may directly affect their health and well-being (Delanerolle et al., 2025). However, despite the potential of the concept of women’s political empowerment to clarify the origin of health outcomes and health inequalities, the concept remains under-examined in health research as compared to other dimensions of women’s empowerment (e.g., social and economic) (Couva et al., 2024). Further, the literature lacks clear theoretical guidance on how women’s political empowerment should be conceptualized and measured (Alexander et al., 2016; Pratley, 2016). For instance, despite growing momentum toward multidimensional and transformative conceptualizations of women’s political empowerment, measurement approaches do not often show the multidimensionality of women’s political empowerment. This may include relying heavily on indicators of women’s political representation (Besnier, 2020). These limitations hinder efforts to clarify the relationship between women’s political empowerment and health outcomes, as well as the pathways through which women’s political empowerment may influence health. As such, this scoping review examines how women’s political empowerment has been conceptualized, measured, and linked to health outcomes in the literature. The three objectives of this review are to: (i) map existing concepts, models, frameworks, and theories linking women’s political empowerment to health; (ii) synthesize the available evidence on the observed or perceived impacts of women’s political empowerment on health outcomes; and (iii) identify conceptual and methodological inconsistencies in how women’s political empowerment is defined and measured across health studies.