Economic bargaining power and decision-making agency constitute two forms of empowerment.
Through the lens of the Capability Approach (CA), economic bargaining power represents the ‘means
to achieve’; economic decision-making agency the vector of ‘functionings’, and gender the intermediate
‘conversion factor’. These three components impact on household members’ well-being. Employing
data from South Africa’s National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS), this study carries out a gendered
analysis of economic bargaining power and economic decision-making agency. The econometric
strategy employs descriptive analysis; probit and multinomial probit regression analysis for crosssectional
data; and the random effects probit regression analysis for panel data. Large strides have been
made towards empowering women as economic decision-makers through enhancing their economic
bargaining power. Persistent gender disparities in economic bargaining power and decision-making
power however argue a case for gender-based economic empowerment policies.