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Empowerment of Landless Rural Women Through Income Generating Activities Under Saip of DAE

M.M. Rahman
Ex-MS Student
Dept. of Agricultural Extension Education, Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), Mymensingh

M.A. Hossain
Professors
Dept. of Agricultural Extension Education, BAU, Mymensingh

M.Z. Rahman
Professors
Dept. of Agricultural Extension Education, BAU, Mymensingh

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

The major objectives of this study were- to assess the extent of empowerment of landless rural women through income generating activities under Smallholder Agricultural Improvement Project (SAIP) of Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) and to explore relationships of the women’s selected characteristics with their empowerment. The study was conducted with the landless women of Sirta union under Sadar upazila of Mymensingh district. Data were collected from a sample of randomly selected 100 landless women from a population of 210. Empowerment of a respondent was measured by considering four dimensions: a) participation in decision making, b) mobility, c) participation in social and political activities and d) access to credit and resources. The overall empowerment score of a landless woman was obtained by summing up her scores of dependent variables. Pearson’s correlation coefficient (r) was computed to explore relationship of the women’s individual characteristics with their empowerment. A pre-tested interview schedule was used to collect data from the landless women, which took place from 10 September to 30 September, 2006. The majority (76%) of the women beneficiaries had low level of empowerment while 5% had very low empowerment and only 19% had medium empowerment. Among the eight independent variables, six variables namely age, education, participation in income generating activities, communication media exposure, credit received and training received had significant positive relationship with women’s empowerment while family size and family annual income did not show significant relationship with their empowerment

Keywords: Empowerment, Income generating activities, SAIP, Landless women

Location: Sadar upazila of Mymensingh district.

Start Date: 10-09-2006

End Date: 20-09-2006

Program Area: Socio-economic and Policy

Non-commodity: Income generation

Objectives:

In order to identify the level and influencing factors of empowerment, the proposed study has been undertaken.

Methodology:

The study was conducted in sadar upazila of Mymensingh district. Mymensingh Sadar upazila consists of fourteen unions. In this upazila, SAIP has 190 groups of which 65 are landless women groups. Among fourteen unions Sirta union was selected randomly so that the expected number of groups exists in that union. Two villages namely char Kharicha and char Anondipur were selected randomly. Five groups from Char Kharicha were Upahar, Prohor, Nayantara, Nayanmoni, Mitali,, and another five groups from Char Anondipur were Shorolipi, Shila, Shurovi, Sayabot, and Shugondha. These groups were selected randomly, and 10 members from each group were also selected randomly. Thus, the sample size stands to 100. In the present study, the selected characteristics of the respondents constituted the independent variables. These were their age, education, family size, annual family income, participation in income generating activities, communication media exposure, credit received and training received. The dependent variable of the study- the empowerment of women under SAIP of DAE, was measured by computing four dimensions, namely decision making ability, mobility, participation in social and political activities, access to asset and resources. Participation in decision making of a respondent was measured by asking eight questions related to making decisions in her family. A respondent was asked to indicate her extent of participation in household decision against each of the statement along with a 4 point continuum: full influence (fully own decision), moderate influence (decision mainly taken by discussion with husband and other family members), low influence and no influence (no participation), while weightages assigned to these responses were 3, 2, 1, and 0 respectively. Again, Decision Making Index (DMI) for each event was calculated by using the obtained decision making participation score and it was computed by using the following formula: Decision Making Index (DMI) =DM_fx3+DM_mx2+DM_dx1+DM_nx0 Where, DM_f= Total number of respondents expressed full decision making ability for a statement DM_m= Total number of respondents expressed moderate decision making ability for a statement DM_d= Total number of respondents expressed low decision making ability for a statement DM_n= Total number of respondents expressed no decision making ability for a statement Thus, DMI could be ranged from 0 to 300 while 0 indicating no participation and 300 indicating full participation. Similar procedures were followed for measuring “mobility”, “participation in social and political activities” and “access to assets and resources”.

Source of Information: Bangladesh Journal of Extension Education, Volume 18, No.1&2, 2006:47-56 ISSN 1011-3916

Article Link (Online Journal):

Funding Source:

Total Budget (Tk.) :

Achievement/Findings:

The study reveals that the rural women participate more in decision-making and social and political activities but their position is still low in ‘mobility’ and access to assets and resources. Thus it may be concluded that economic and political empowerment are must to achieve a good level of empowerment. Necessary steps should be taken by the government so that the women have access into assets and resources. In this study 76% of the women were in low level of empowerment which is not an expected situation. So, it can be concluded that gender specific programmes are needed to accelerate the process of empowerment of women. Education level of the women in the study area was relatively good but not high. Education had significant correlation with empowerment. The more the educational level, the more they will be empowered. So, any programme implemented to empower the women, the program must take attention on educational aspect. Communication media exposure had significant and positive relation with empowerment, but the respondents in the rural area had low exposure with different communication media. Through extension media contact an individual becomes exposed to new ideas, new technologies and technological information. So, it could be concluded that rural women should have more communication media exposure which will increase their demand for choice, opinion and access to assets and rights and thus to be more empowered. As per findings of the study it may be suggested that increase of credit availability may improve the empowerment situation of women. It also may be considered that training received had positive significant relationship with empowerment of women. So it can be concluded that empowerment of women can be increased by providing training on different income generating activities. The study reveals that women take major decision about their children welfare, homestead gardening and daily diet but they have little decision making power on economic issues. Women have little authority to take any economic decision. Without economic solvency it is not possible to uplift their position both in family and society. So it may be concluded that they should be involved more in IGAs to achieve economic solvency in order to improve their position.

Knowledge Management: Journal