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

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  • Roy, Chandan
  • Chatterjee, Susmita
  • Dutta Gupta, Sangita

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Roy, Chandan & Chatterjee, Susmita & Dutta Gupta, Sangita, 2017. "Women Empowerment Index: Construction of a Tool to Measure Rural Women Empowerment Level in India," MPRA Paper 92796, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:92796
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Matthias Doepke & Michèle Tertilt, 2019. "Does female empowerment promote economic development?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 309-343, December.
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    Cited by:

    1. Sanghita Bhattacharjee & Bhaskar Goswami, 2020. "Determinants of Empowerment: An Insight from the Study of the Female Domestic Workers," Paradigm, , vol. 24(2), pages 226-238, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Women; Empowerment Index; Economic Development; Self Help Group; Economic Development;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B54 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Feminist Economics
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • O16 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance
    • O20 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - General

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