Women Empowerment Measurement

Women Empowerment Measurement is an attempt to statistically measure the empowerment of women in terms of social, economic, cultural, political, legal and personality aspects. This book covers the significant levels identified in the spheres of social, economic, political, cultural, legal and personality development attained by the women. Further, it delves on the extent of NGOs’ contributions towards women empowerment.

As the Women empowerment policy document of India observes; in recent years, the empowerment of women has been recognized as the central issue in determining the status of women. The women’s movement and a wide-spread network of non-Government Organizations which have strong grass-roots presence and deep insight into women’s concerns have contributed in inspiring initiatives for the empowerment of women.

However, there still exists an extensive gap between the goals ensured in the constitution, legislation, policies, plans, programmes, and the field reality of the status of women today. Thus women empowerment is the process of access, control and sharing of resources, information and power of decision making in terms of social, economic, political, cultural, legal and personality of the individual. Empowerment is a multi-faceted, multi-dimensional and multi-layered concept. Empowerment is also the expansion of assets and capabilities of people to participate, negotiate, influence, control and accessibility over social and economic, political, educational, religious and cultural institutions that affect their lives.

The concept empowerment simply means, adding to women’s power-to the power by having control or gaining further control; having a say and being listened to; being able to define and create from a women’s perspective; being able to influence social choices and decision affecting the whole society; being recognized and respected as equal citizens and human beings with a contribution to make.

Women are deprived of freedom of autonomy and choice and in the Indian society, they have restricted mobility and lack access to resources, information and quality decision making. In the empowerment process, one has to equip oneself with the required knowledge, right attitude and capacity. Empowerment has both cognitive and political dimensions: one cannot act without awareness, and similarly, awareness without consequent action is meaningless. Empowerment involves a transformation of social relations, specifically gender relations and processes and goes beyond choices to gain access to new avenues and social transformation. As the specific indicators of women empowerment identified as understanding, confidence, skills in analysis, communication, caring, tolerance, co-operation and access to Information.

In this book, women empowerment in social life is measured by their social concern, social leadership attitude of collaboration, joint responsibility, sharing responsibilities, raising voice against social problems and ability to solve the social problems. Economic empowerment is measured by various factors such as monthly income, monthly expenditure, monthly savings, borrowings and utilization of borrowing

Political Empowerment is one of the major factors in the empowerment of women such as choosing the leaders, contesting elections participation in systematic transformation by engaging in political action and their participation in political life. The legal empowerment covers areas such as awareness, access to resources, services and opportunities.

Personality development is one of the major factors in women empowerment. It creates self-confidence, self-esteem and self-respect. It is not easy to develop leadership qualities such as competence or self-efficacy self-determination impact self-confidence, decision making, problem solving skills and self-esteem.

This piece of work could guide the appropriate authorities both governmental and non-governmental to evolve policies, programs and other measures to strengthen the women folk. It could also serve as a reference material to research scholars in the field of women empowerment, women development, sociology, rural development and social work.