Socio-Spatial Barriers to Empowerment:Women's Worth in Social Capital:A Study of Bijnor District, Uttar Pradesh, India

Socio-economic empowerment has been understood to be the mainstay of development initiatives in India and the developing world. The role of women tends to get underplayed especially in terms of social capital. The work participation of women tends to remain latent and unacknowledged in terms of adequate remuneration. Elements of caste, class and religious grouping tend to further aggravate the position of the women on the socio-economic ladder. Many of the programmes and initiatives taken up by the government and the corporate sector have suffered setbacks due to the invisibility of the women in the social capital of the region. Not only are the women not acknowledged as partners in economic progress they are waylaid on the road to development of women's participation in the district's economy which are considered and which are ignored in the gradation of women's inputs and contribution on a regular established basis.