The objective of this paper is to analyze the effects of intra-household governance on the economic empowerment of women through the labor market, measured here by the female employment rate. To this end, a composite indicator of governance was constructed from three indicators of the Women, Business and the Law (WBL) initiative related to household governance. These indicators evaluate constraints linked to marriage, mobility, and entrepreneurship within the household. The effects of intra-household governance on women’s empowerment via the labor market were determined using an econometric analysis. Specifically, a panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE) model with country-specific unobserved effects was estimated. The results allow us to draw two main conclusions: (i) improving the quality of household governance acts as a brake on women’s empowerment and (ii) increasing marriage-related constraints appears to be a factor that stimulates women’s empowerment. These findings lead to several policy implications.