Economic Justice: Women need wealth ownership, not just empowerment — Sheila Minkah-Premo

Managing Consultant at ALC Law Consult, Sheila Minkah-Premo, says conversations about women’s empowerment must move beyond income, opportunity and participation to the more difficult question of wealth ownership.

She argued that true economic justice will remain incomplete if women are empowered to earn, but are still excluded from owning, controlling and transferring productive assets.

Mrs. Minkah-Premo made the point on Wednesday, July 29, while speaking at the 10th anniversary lecture of the Young African Women’s Congress Network.

According to her, empowerment is important, but it is not the same as economic justice.

She explained that empowerment should be understood as both a process and an outcome through which people gain the ability to make meaningful choices and exercise agency over decisions that affect their lives.

“Empowerment is a word that we all hear every day about. It’s been widely explored within development scholarship,” she said.

She noted that economic empowerment is often discussed in terms of women earning more income, entering markets or gaining access to opportunities.

However, she said that definition is not enough.

“Economic empowerment refers not only to increasing women’s incomes, but to expanding their capacity to access productive resources, participate in markets, influence economic decision-making, and exercise control over the benefits derived from their labour,” she said.

Mrs. Minkah-Premo warned that a society can create empowered women and still fail to create women who own wealth in a meaningful way.

For her, the real test is whether women have access to land, housing, businesses, savings, investments, pensions, shares and other assets that can create long-term security.

She said the distinction between income and wealth is critical.

“Income is what we earn. Wealth is what we own,” she stated.

She explained that wealth provides the foundation for long-term economic security and intergenerational prosperity.

Relying on the work of economist Thomas Piketty, Mrs. Minkah-Premo said wealth ownership often reveals deeper and more persistent inequality than income figures alone.

She added that ownership must not be reduced to merely holding legal title.

According to her, real ownership means having the power to control, use, benefit from and transfer productive assets.

Mrs. Minkah-Premo therefore called for deeper legal, economic and social reforms to address the systems that determine who owns resources and who benefits from economic growth.

“Economic justice, therefore, requires more than expanding opportunities. It requires transforming the legal, economic, and social systems that determine who owns productive assets, who exercises control over resources, and who benefits from economic growth,” she said.

She defined economic justice as a set of moral principles for building fair economic institutions, with emphasis on equal opportunity, fair wealth distribution and equitable working conditions.

“Its ultimate goal is to provide every person with sufficient material foundation to live a dignified, productive, and creative life,” she added.

Mrs. Minkah-Premo said without reforms that give women real control over wealth, empowerment efforts may produce visible progress without correcting the deeper inequalities that shape economic life.