| Abstract: | Women are widely recognised as key agents for sustainable rural development and make a significant contribution to agricultural and related activities, to environmental management and protection, to local governance and to the resilience of communities. Despite these contributions, rural women still face persistent structural inequalities in access to land, credit, education, technology and decision-making. Although the academic interest in women’s empowerment and rural development has increased significantly in the last two decades, literature remains fragmented along themes and disciplinary lines. The study adopts a descriptive bibliometric and thematic review approach based on journal articles, books and key policy documents to study publication trends, the models of academic cooperation and dominant thematic domains. The findings show a significant increase in research output since 2015, together with a conceptual shift from narrow economic interventions to multi-dimensional frameworks covering empowerment, livelihoods, health, digital inclusion and climate resilience. |
