capabilities can be thought of as the prerequisites for adults to engage in production that provides a secure and adequate livelihood typically measured with education and health variables livelihoods refers to measures such as wages employment access to credit ownership of productive assets the third domain agency or empowerment can be understood as the ability of individuals and the groups to which they belong to shape their environment thus gender equality in this domain would imply that women are equally agentic as men women s share of trade union membership and of managerial and leadership positions in cooperatives businesses and governing bodies are useful indicators in this domain