Development and validation of the Women Autonomy Scale for measuring psychosocial freedom from conventional gender roles.

BACKGROUND

The concepts of masculinity and femininity have historically shaped gender roles, leading to inequality and gender-based discrimination. Women's autonomy, defined as the ability to make independent choices across various life domains, remains inadequately measured by existing scales. This study addresses this gap by developing and validating the Women Autonomy Scale (WAS).

METHODS

The development and validation of the WAS involved four phases with a total of 2,252 adult women from Rawalpindi and Islamabad, Pakistan. These phases included exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and assessments of convergent and discriminant validity by using the Psychosocial Life Satisfaction Scale and the Dependent Personality Disorder sub-scale of the Personality Disorders Questionnaire.

RESULTS

The WAS demonstrated high reliability across the four phases (α = 0.810 to 0.857). Test-retest reliability was 0.788 after two weeks of initial administration. EFA revealed a four-factor structure consisting of 18 items: personal freedom, freedom from conventional femininity, freedom from conventional masculinity, and freedom from shame. CFA confirmed this structure, showing good fit indices (CFI = 0.951, RMSEA = 0.052). The scale's convergent validity was established through a significant positive correlation with the Psychosocial Life Satisfaction Scale (r = 0.394, p < 0.01), and discriminant validity was confirmed via a significant inverse correlation with the Dependent Personality Disorder sub-scale (r = -0.255, p < 0.01).

CONCLUSION

The WAS is a reliable and valid instrument for comprehensively assessing women's autonomy. It addresses limitations of previous measures and provides a robust tool for research and policymaking aimed at promoting gender equality and women's empowerment.