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Women Empowerment Index:Construction of a Tool to Measure Rural Women Empowerment Level in India


Affiliations
1 Department of Economics, Kaliyaganj College, Kaliyaganj, Uttar Dinajpur, West Bengal – 733129, India
2 Maharaja Manindra Chandra College, Kolkata, India
3 IFIM Business School, Bangalore, India
     

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Poverty ignites the societal gap between men and women, while economic development narrows it down through its gender promotional activities. There is bidirectional relationship between economic development and empowerment of women. Women empowerment, being dependent on complex sociological and economic issues, needs to be measured in terms of specific parameters like 'access to resources', 'decision making capability' and 'ability to take a stand'. This particular study develops an Index based on few sector-specific parameters to measure empowerment level of women engaged in Self Help Groups. Both 'individual empowerment index' and 'group empowerment indices' have been constructed, where 'financial liberty', 'ability to take decisions', 'heath condition of the women and 'ability to stand up against the evils of the society' have been considered as her empowerment parameters. The index was applied on 300 SHG Group members of rural West Bengal, which provided us an idea about the existing level of rural women empowerment in West Bengal.

Keywords

Women, Empowerment Index, Economic Development, Self Help Group, Economic Development.
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  • Women Empowerment Index:Construction of a Tool to Measure Rural Women Empowerment Level in India

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Authors

Chandan Roy
Department of Economics, Kaliyaganj College, Kaliyaganj, Uttar Dinajpur, West Bengal – 733129, India
Susmita Chatterjee
Maharaja Manindra Chandra College, Kolkata, India
Sangita Dutta Gupta
IFIM Business School, Bangalore, India

Abstract


Poverty ignites the societal gap between men and women, while economic development narrows it down through its gender promotional activities. There is bidirectional relationship between economic development and empowerment of women. Women empowerment, being dependent on complex sociological and economic issues, needs to be measured in terms of specific parameters like 'access to resources', 'decision making capability' and 'ability to take a stand'. This particular study develops an Index based on few sector-specific parameters to measure empowerment level of women engaged in Self Help Groups. Both 'individual empowerment index' and 'group empowerment indices' have been constructed, where 'financial liberty', 'ability to take decisions', 'heath condition of the women and 'ability to stand up against the evils of the society' have been considered as her empowerment parameters. The index was applied on 300 SHG Group members of rural West Bengal, which provided us an idea about the existing level of rural women empowerment in West Bengal.

Keywords


Women, Empowerment Index, Economic Development, Self Help Group, Economic Development.

References





DOI: https://doi.org/10.15410/aijm%2F2018%2Fv7i1%2F119887