Empowerment of Rural Women in Bangladesh: A Household Level Analysis

Abstract

Although women constitute about half of the Bangladesh population, their social status especially in rural areas remains very low. Rural women belong to the most deprived section of the society facing adverse conditions in terms of social oppression and economic inequality, a visible majority of them being extremely poor. Considering this scenario, this paper investigates the nature and extent of rural women's empowerment and factors influencing it. The paper further outlines a strategic framework for enhancing rural women's empowerment. The methodology of this study is an integration of quantitative and qualitative methods based on data collected in three villages of Mymensingh district. Six key indicators of empowerment covering three dimensions were chosen for this purpose. Data were collected from 156 respondents during January-April 2003 following stratified random sampling. Finally, a cumulative empowerment index (CEI) was developed adding the obtained scores of six empowerment indicators. The distribution of empowerment indicators show that 83% of the women have a very low to low economic contribution, 44% have a very low to low access to resources, 93% have a very poor to poor asset ownership, 73% have a moderate to high participation in household decision-making, 43% have a highly unfavourable to unfavourable perception on gender awareness and 72% have a moderate to high coping capacity to household shocks. The distribution of CEI demonstrates that the majority of rural women have a very low to moderate (82%) level of empowerment. The multiple regression analysis shows that there were strong positive effects of formal and non-formal education, information media exposure and spatial mobility on women's CEI, while traditional socio-cultural norms have a strong negative effect. The study concludes that education, training and exposure to information media have the