Pathways to empowerment?: Dynamics of women’s participation in Global Value Chains.

Gender plays an important role in shaping the outcomes of participation within Global Value Chains (GVCs). Employment in GVCs may have potential to empower women, but little is known about the dynamics by which GVCs bring about empowerment, rather studies highlight abuse of women’s rights and on-going gender-based discrimination. This paper considers whether and how employment within GVCs empowers women workers. By drawing from an in-depth empirical study of women workers employed in the Kenyan tea and cut-flower industries, it develops three interlinked pathways to empowerment through employment in GVCs. These pathways based on ‘being’, ‘doing’ and ‘sharing’ offer some positive changes from the women workers’ perspectives. In so doing, we offer a more nuanced perspective on employment for women in GVCs in African agriculture, acknowledging the constraints but also noting the potential for positive outcomes.