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

ABSTRACT:

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 t

SUBMITTER: Husain W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11783771 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature