The Nexus among Family Business, Household Finances and Women Empowerment: Evidence from PDHS 2017-18

Purpose: This study intends to determine whether family businesses empower women, encourage their entrepreneurship, and enable them to become fully engaged in activities that generate finances by allowing them to select their own business idea. Methodology: Empowering women is crucial for accelerating economic and financial progress. The question of the economic empowerment of women is of utmost importance to political philosophers, social scientists, and reformers because it is currently thought of as a sine qua non of progress for a nation. This study examines the relationship between women's financial empowerment, business, and the home using data from the 2017 – 18 Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS). For this, we employed binary logistic regression. Findings: Women who are educated and have a job are more empowered than women who are not employed. Furthermore, economic and financial development cannot occur without the advancement of women. Women should be taught technical knowledge and marketing strategies and empowered to develop their skills to create more sustainable businesses. Contribution to literature: This study contributes to the literature in two ways: First, this study utilized the fertility variable which was not utilized in earlier studies. Second, this study identified the women empowerment factors by using four different indicators.


INTRODUCTION
Despite their significant contribution to development, discrimination against women, particularly in developing nations, is a key obstacle to global economic and financial development. The rules, traditions, beliefs, and souls of society all contribute to the fact that women are treated worse than men. Women suffer from this unjust treatment on a host of topics, including social, cultural, religious, economic, and legal (Schnable, DeMattee, Sullivan Robinson, & Brass, 2021). Due to a deficiency of resources, the population, and the strict division of services and opportunities by gender, class, and location, Pakistani women are among the most deprived in the world. Since it would be difficult to continue Pakistan's sustainable economic and financial development without women's participation in significant initiatives, a study (Olonade et al., 2021) hypothesized that women's economic empowerment is vital for sustainable development (Regmi, 2022). Empowering women is a universal challenge. The idea of women's empowerment was first proposed at the worldwide women's conference in Nairobi in 1985. Women's empowerment has reached a turning point because of education, which gives them the tools to improve their lives and counter their established roles. The human race has two wings: women and men. A bird cannot take to the air unless both wings are similarly developed (Baruah, 2021;Mubeen & Quddus, 2021). The multidimensional process of empowerment helps women achieve their potential and power in all areas of life. Completing the triple objectives of equality, growth, and social justice depends on women's empowerment (Sinha, Mahapatra, Dutta, & Sengupta, 2023). Recent years have seen the emergence of empowerment as an idea that would free women from their disadvantaged states and give them a chance to embrace the freedom to choose and participate in their cultures (Sabnis & Proctor, 2021). Empowering women is necessary on both a national and global scale. Women must cultivate and promote self-reliance and self-esteem to effect change. Rather than being a goal in and of change, empowerment is a growth process. It entails having control over and access to resources and the ability to make decisions on one's earned income, savings, and spending for one's family's needs and other purposes. The attainment of all millennium development goals (MDGs), sustainable development, and growth that benefits the poor all depend on women's economic and financial empowerment (Vandemoortele, 2007). The growth of industry, globalization, and social regulations have changed women's standing globally since the turn of the last century (Mubeen, Shahid, & ur Rashid, 2021;Tzannatos, 1999). Women have emerged from the home and attained higher levels of professional activities following access to knowledge and understanding. Women have successfully standardized themselves with males in the professional world in practically all developed nations (Nandy & Pop, 2014). Women-controlled and owned businesses today account for between 25.8 and 28.1 percent of all companies globally and are recognized as essential components of society and the economy (Azzahra'Johari, Rashid, Safian, & Nasuredin, 2021). Undoubtedly, gender norms are inherent in Pakistan in limiting women's access to the labor market, either by forcing them to stay permanently at home or limiting their employment options to only those considered appropriate Khalid and Razem (2022). Men are typically considered the head of households, and most concur that firms should favor hiring men over women if employment is in short supply. This is true for all social classes. Although it could be expected that education would alter this perception, respondents with higher levels of education are somewhat less likely to concur with this assertion Mubeen, Shahid, & Hye, 2022). Entrepreneurs report seeing growth in the Pakistani economy. However, the patriarchal culture that is inherent in enterprises does not speak well for women entrepreneurs. In informal sector, only 1% women are business owners as compared to the men (Adom, 2015;Zandi, Rehan, Hye, Mubeen, & Abbas, 2022). Most women who own businesses work in traditional industries like food, textiles, or vocational training. There are still few motivated women who can truly make a difference. Compared to developed nations, Pakistan has a comparatively low proportion of women working and owning enterprises. Pakistan has a 31.6% female labor force participation rate compared with 45% in the USA, 43% in the UK, 42% in Canada, 32% in France, 40% in Indonesia, 40% in Sri Lanka, and 35% in Brazil (Huyer, 2015). Women's traditional role in Pakistan has been as housewives taking care of the home. The major challenges Pakistani women face in running successful enterprises are expectations from the family and personal obligations and responsibilities. Establishing priorities and running successful and efficient operations under such conditions is challenging. Pakistani women prioritize their domestic duties above all else and are very conscientious and concerned about them (Nawaz, Kiran, Koser, Shabbir, & Zamir, 2022). Family enterprises have mostly been ignored in studies on women in family companies, particularly in Punjab and Pakistan. This is in stark contrast to the importance of women's empowerment in family enterprises and the value of family businesses to general economic activity.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Women naturally excel in business. They have innate qualities that help them succeed in work-related tasks, like a desire to learn new skills and expand their knowledge, the ability to deal with conflict, sensitivity, and willpower. They are regarded as skilled at remaining balanced and perceiving the big picture without ignoring crucial details. The consensus is that they put forth a lot of effort and are meticulous in their work. Ghosh and Cheruvalath (2007) found that higher-educated women were more enterprising than their lesseducated colleagues, according to their research in Kerala. Arthur carried out a comparable investigation. Higher levels of education were found to improve the likelihood of business ownership (Fevang et al., 2021;Mubeen, Shahid, & Taib, 2019). This finding lends credence to the hypothesis that less educated women may encounter resource and human capital limitations that limit their abundance of growth options. Education increases women's understanding of their rights and inspires them to explore their hidden entrepreneurial potential. While also exploring emerging opportunities that encourage them to participate actively in business to improve their economic and social status (Maseda, Iturralde, Cooper, & Aparicio, 2022). They also focused on the characteristics that increase the possibility of a wife joining the family business in a study on wives. Their most important discovery was that spouses are more likely to be involved when a couple buys, invests in, or founds a business than when a business is given. Because of the development of globalization, to maintain economic progress and social advancement, women entrepreneurs are crucial. Additionally, women have been seen as new development agents. Women entrepreneurs have been identified as the next rising economic stars in developing markets, having the potential to increase income and well-being (Levermore, 2008 first appeared in the literature on entrepreneurship. Several academics worldwide are leading the research on women entrepreneurs (Strawser, Hechavarría, & Passerini, 2021). Although entrepreneurship is typically associated with women, numerous studies show it is largely male dominated. The business fosters women's empowerment by providing them with independence, opportunities, self-assurance, and creativity (Khandwalla, 2014;Mubeen, Shahid, & Khan, 2022). Women are empowered when they work in the workforce, assume leadership roles in social and political concerns, and have access to finance, for example (Du et al., 2022). Most international organizations have recently paid a lot of attention to the issue of women's empowerment as a policy issue. Small enterprises have a large potential for job creation and low capital requirements, which could act as accelerators for economic growth by severing the link between poverty and unemployment (Bharti, 2021). Das, Mishra, Das, and Das (2022) studied several facets of women's empowerment in the chosen districts of Andra Pradesh, India. Factors including age, income, marital status, and education level were examined to investigate women's empowerment. The study's findings showed that women in the 18 to 50 age group had either a married or an unmarried marital status. Women who are over 50 are more powerful. The study's findings showed that marital status unaffected women's empowerment. However, women with advanced degrees, like a Ph.D., can make money more easily. Ali, Zakar, Junaid, Khan, and Fischer (2021) obtained the initial data in Pakistan's Lahore. Based on a survey that used the Ordered Logit regression method, the authors gathered a sample of 200 female respondents. Various elements were looked at to analyze women's empowerment for econometric analysis. However, in addition to the other socio-economic characteristics in the study, having a bank account and having access to credit are the distinguishing variables. The study's conclusions showed that position, education, and training greatly impact women's empowerment. However, many other factors, including economic opportunity and employee involvement, have demonstrated a significant positive link with women's empowerment. In a country where men dominate, like Pakistan, it is challenging for a woman to make her own decisions independently. The male household members must continue to provide for the needs of the females. Shah and Riaz (2021), based on the 350 respondents from Khurram Agency FATA who responded to the survey that served as the sample, gathered our primary data. Many indices of women's empowerment have been examined for the econometric study. According to the study, education, possessions, financial prospects, and decision-making authority contribute to women's empowerment. Women's empowerment is proven to be adversely correlated with poverty. In a male-dominated society, Soharwardi and Ahmad (2020) created the women empowerment index to examine various variables at the household level. The authors compiled information from a Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) study of 38 developing countries. The respondents' work status, awareness, decision-making, self-esteem, and selfconfidence were the five variables under examination. According to the study's findings, factors including husbands' higher levels of education, health, husbands' jobs, status, and family wealth have a big impact on women's empowerment. Additionally, having more children ensures more empowered women in the household. However, the household head's age, gender, and location significantly impact women's empowerment in underdeveloped countries. Andriamahery and Qamruzzaman (2021) use descriptive statistics to examine the impact of women's businesses on empowerment in Bangladesh while considering 160 respondents. According to the report, among other things, access to outside funding is a significant determinant in how women expand their businesses. As a result of business support for various forms of strengthening of women in the public that result in the closure of the gender gap and protection, there are more economic opportunities for women (Colling & Dickens, 1998). Women's social and political support takes many forms, and all acts of boosting are linked. It may be argued that encouraging female entrepreneurs is a good way to revive a failing economy. "Among various business endeavors, women's groups play a key role in boosting budgets and undertaking tasks to better-impoverished women for their exceptional performance (Moussa, 2020).

Data
Results from the 2017-18 Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) survey were used in this study. Additionally, only married women are included in the poll. Numerous developed countries have done demography and welfare surveys with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). These surveys are nationally representative and include data on a range of health indicators, including contraception, fertility preferences, maternal health, infants, child, adult, and abortion rates, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) knowledge, diet, and female emancipation, intimate partner violence, and community socio-economic characteristics. The Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS), conducted by the National Institute of Population Studies (NIPS) Government of Pakistan with support from USAID, covered the years 2017-2018. In the PDHS 2017-2018, 12,364 ever-married women aged 15-49 were chosen for a cumulative survey from 12,815 selected households, while 3,145 ever-married men aged 15-49 were questioned in a third of the selected houses. The functional structure of our study model is presented as a way to pinpoint the socio-economic elements that affect women's empowerment.

Dependent variables
Our dependent variable, the empowerment of women, has four decision-making proxies comprising: • Health care decisions.
• Spending husband's earnings. WE = Women's empowerment has traditionally been equated with women's involvement in decision-making. Alternately, four distinct regressions for Pakistan as a whole, then for regions and sectors, employed the participation of women in decision-making over their health care, significant household purchases, trips to family or relatives, and spending their husbands' earnings. First, four dimensions of the dependent variable represent empowerment. There are four categories of decisionmaking, and their answer is yes or no. We used binary logistic regression for analysis. Our study's dependent variable is binary. In this case, for research, binary logistic regression is found suitable.
To determine how our dependent variable interacts with an independent variable, we use odds ratio (OR). The odds ratio represents the likelihood of an event occurring given a specific exposure instead of the probability of the outcome occurring without direction (Gujarati & Porter, 2009). It is available as the logistic model that was employed in our investigation.

Punjab (N= 2646 obtained from PDHS 2017-18)
More than one hundred million people live in Punjab, with 70,008,451 residing in urban areas (according to the 2017 census). Most of Punjab's transnational zone is bordered by several Pakistani provinces, notably Sindh, Baluchistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Lahore serves as the provincial capital of Punjab, which spans an area of 205,344 km2. Punjab had a 64.7% literacy rate in 2018. There are 38.6 million people in the labor force overall, and the labor force participation rate is 55.1%, with 82.0% male and 29.6% female. However, the overall unemployment rate is 5.7%, with 5.0% male and 7.7% female. Punjab is well-known for its relative wealth in Pakistan. It is the most industrialized province and has the lowest poverty rate among all provinces. With nearly 40% of the population residing in urban areas, Punjab is one of the most urbanized regions in South Asia. It ranks highly on the human development index compared with the rest of Pakistan. About 23% of the labor force in Punjab is employed in manufacturing, which also contributes 24% to the province (Iftikhar & Mahmood, 2017). Pakistan's economy's service and agricultural sectors are particularly dominated by manufacturing. Its contribution to the service sector ranges from 52.1% to 64.50%, while in the agricultural sector, it ranges from 56.1% to 61.50%. About 23% of the labor force in Punjab is employed in manufacturing, contributing 24% to the province's GDP (Kim & Wood, 2020). It particularly controls the agricultural and service sectors of Pakistan's economy. The agricultural sector goes from 56.1% to 61.50%, while its contribution to the service sector runs from 52.1% to 64.50%. Due to its large and highly qualified group of experts, it is also a significant employer in Pakistan. With historical contributions ranging from a low of 44% to a peak of 52.6%, the industrial sector remains dominant, but the dominance is diminishing (GOP, 2019). Table 3 explains that the women's ages are significantly and more frequently related to their health care. Women who are 45 to 49 years old are 2.620 times more likely than males to be involved in healthcare decisions. Place of living is 1.079 times more likely to participate in healthcare decisions but has a limited influence. Secondary and higher education is strongly related to choices on one's health. Domestic violence, media exposure, and financial account balance are all strongly linked to these choices. However, there is little correlation between wealth position, fertility preferences, property ownership, and medical decisions.  Table 4 describes that Women of all ages make the majority of household purchases. Women over 40 are three times as likely as men to participate in significant household purchases. The difference between urban and nonurban women's likelihood to make decisions is significant, being 1.188 times greater than the former. There is little correlation between education, BISP, print media, fertility preferences, wealth position, and property ownership. However, marital violence, employment status, and electronic media all greatly impact the choice.  Table 6 shows that spending a husband's income is closely connected to age, occupational status, BISP, newspapers and magazines, the number of boys, marital violence, fertility aspirations, and print media. Women who have not had any dependents are one time more likely to decide on fertility preferences than women who are uncertain, who are zero times less likely to make decisions. Wealth status and property ownership are less likely to influence decisions about how much money to spend on the husband's income.

Conclusions
The representation of women in the business sector is rapidly increasing. There's an immediate need to improve the economic and financial status of women because they are essential to the course of financial progress in every economy. Since education offers women the strength to overcome challenges, question their traditions, and improve their lives, it is seen as a critical step toward women's empowerment. According to the 2012 World Development Report, Women's Rights and Development published by the World Bank, eliminating these gender disparities is crucial for development and policymaking. Greater gender equality has several advantages, including better development outcomes for future generations, higher economic production, and many more electoral systems and policies. Significant gender imbalances persist even when a country makes progress, calling for sustained, focused public action. Significant development benefits will come from corrective actions concentrating on the enduring gender disparities that are most crucial for welfare. For these measures to be effective, they must tackle the root causes of inequity, even considering the internal political economy.

Policy Recommendations
The report makes several significant policy recommendations that could directly impact female's participating in the labor market or enhancing women's physical mobility. Since many of these interventions have not been sufficiently investigated, rigorous testing is required. A series of studies must be conducted to calculate the advantages and disadvantages of various policies, program designs, and funding allocations to make the optimal decisions for improving Pakistan's female labor force participation. The actions can either try to alter Pakistan's current rules or remove important restrictions by getting around them. Policy proposals that do the former could change societal norms over the long term through social exposure by boosting female labor force participation in the short to medium term. Policy improvements could promote female labor force participation in the below fields.
Making education up to the secondary level compulsory is vital to making marginalized populations employable for them to begin to study or develop their skills. This will make it easier for them to get better-paying employment in the official sector. The following are some typical actions that are crucial to empowering female business owners: 1. Giving women easy access to financing at a discounted cost to encourage them to start businesses. 2. Promoting women's participation in all spheres of life. 3. Fostering women's influence on decision-making. 4. Transforming female homemakers into managers. 5. Educating women about the various business opportunities available to them. 6. Creating educational standards and governing programs for vocational training that enable women to outperform males in decision-making and boost their entrepreneurial skills. 7. Strengthening partnerships with women's rights groups. 8. Promoting communication between female business owners. 9. Women should be able to work in a range of industries by being able to pursue professional positions in all sectors. 10. Ending discrimination against women through modifying conventional, conservative, and orthodox attitudes about women business owners. 11. Supporting the creation of a cooperative group of female business owners to mobilize resources and ideas to assist other female business owners.

FUNDING
This study received no specific financial support.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.