Association of Income and Occupation with Knowledge Level of Women Representatives in Gram Panchayat Activities

Gender equality and empowerment of women is recognized globally as a key element to achieve progress in all spheres of life. Democratic decentralization is the best bet for good governance. The efficient functioning and desired goals of PRI are not possible without active participation of women representatives in different development activities and decision making process. It is the need of the hour to examine the knowledge of women representatives in PRIs despite the socio-economic constraints. The present study was undertaken to know the association of income and occupation with knowledge level of elected women in gram panchayat activities. The present study was undertaken in purposively selected Panchkula and Mewat districts of Haryana state having the highest and the lowest female literacy status, respectively. A sample of 160 respondents consisting of 80 respondents from each district was taken. Income and occupation are important indicators of economic and social position of an individual in the society. While categorizing the respondents according to their income, the contention of government to estimate the income for BPL was taken into account and it was operationalized as low (upto Rs. 27000), medium (27001-150000) and high income group (about Rs. 150000). Occupation was divided into four main categories viz; farming, agricultural and skilled labour, professional or businessman and any other work. The socioeconomic profile of respondents indicated that majority of them were from middle age, illiterate or primary school educated, married, belonging to backward class, joint family, farming, medium income group and low to medium mass media exposure. The result indicated a significant association between income levels of elected women members with their knowledge level. More number of respondents from high income group was having high knowledge of administrative and economic activities (62.00%), social activities (72.00%), political activities (80.00%) and public and civic amenities (62.00%). A significant association was also found between occupation and knowledge level of respondents about different Gram Panchayat activities as indicating that more than 80 percent respondents from professional and business class were having high knowledge level of different activities except agriculture, health and sanitation and judicial activities. Similarly respondents from other works like hawkers, small shops in village, domestic helpers were having high knowledge about different activities of Gram Panchayat.