Back Ground: Women empowerment is always considered as the key aspect of social and economic development and it is also essential for the achievement of sustainable development throughout the world. Kerala, which went through many social revolutions in the last century, is now witnessing another important gain in the empowerment of women which in turn lead them to have the power of self-efficacy. There are many studies conducted in Kerala that measuring the empowerment of women in general aspects but studies which focus on their determinants are very few.

Objectives: This paper tries to measure the level of women empowerment in Kerala and to find out the role of socio economic determinants in women empowerment

Data and Methodology: Using the National level data from National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4, 2015-16).The three main dimensions of women empowerment considered in this study are the decision making power, economic freedom and freedom of movement of women in Kerala. To create an Aggregate Index of Women Empowerment (AIWE) we used their Economic Autonomy Index, Household decision making Index and Freedom of Movement Index. The socio economic backgrounds of the respondents were explained through contingency tables. Both Bivariate and multivariate analysis were used to identify the associated factors of women empowerment.

Results: The study resulted that a majority of women enjoys the empowerment in all the three dimensions we considered in this study. Women who are more empowered are independent of economic constraints and they enjoy better freedom of movement and have more decision making power.

KEY WORDS: Empowerment, Economic Autonomy ,Freedom for decision making, Freedom of Movement, Aggregate Index of Women Empowerment