Empowerment of Women Through Household Decision Making Power in India: A State Wise Analysis

Susmita Bharati, Manoranjan Pal, Suparna Som and Premananda Bharati

Abstract

Empowerment of women refers to giving decision-making power to women in social, economic and political sphere of life. It is a process of making women aware of socio-psycho-cultural and political injustice that is prevailing in the society against women. Women empowerment is a prerequisite to gender equality and development.

The process of empowerment should start from our own home. Women’s position in the household determines women’s autonomy in the family. It is worth to examine whether women can decide about household matters like buying jewelries, having access to money, having mobility to go to market or relatives house or getting health care facilities.

In this paper we have found the state wise variations in the percentages of women who are involved in the household decision making power and have examined whether levels of education, types of occupation, working status of women etc., and the other characteristics of the household like standard of living, sex of head of household etc. have positive influence on the empowerment. Data from NFHS-2 Survey conducted in 1998-99 have been used for the analysis.

The degree of women’s decision making power is not same over the different aspects of life considered here. Women are almost the sole authority to decide about cooking and have access to money but can rarely buy jewelry of its own. Less than one-third of women can decide about health care or get permission to go to relatives house or market.

The empowerment of women increases with the age of women and remains almost same among different occupational groups. Husband’s education or occupation does not contribute much to the empowerment. Working women have distinct advantage as against non-working or unpaid working women. Though maximum percentage of empowered women has been observed about cooking but its nature is different from others. Unlike others, this percentage decreases as SLI increases, is less for literate women and female headed households. Behaviour of North-East region is also a bit different from other regions in India which becomes evident if one compares the coefficients of the logistic regression.

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Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata

Introduction

India is a democratic country and democracy implies equal opportunity to all and thus also implies gender equity. But in reality, most of the states are patriarchal where women lack autonomy and have low status in the family as well as in the larger society. Since the mid 1980s, the term empowerment or autonomy has received considerable attention in the study of development, especially with reference to women. In the world conference on women in Bejing (1995) priority has been given for empowering the women in the developing countries because the status of women has been found to be low in these countries.

According to Dixon (1978), autonomy means “the degree of women’s access to material resources (including food, income, land and other forms of wealth) and to social resources (including knowledge, power and prestige) within the family, in the community and in the society at large”. Dyson and Moore (1983) stated that female autonomy as “the capacity to manipulate one’s personal environment”. Mason (1984) stated “Measurement of female autonomy includes the degree of power of women to have over their own mobility, personal decision and decisions within the household”. So autonomy means the controlling power of women in their own lives as well as on their family members, authority to make independent decisions, freedom from constraints on physical mobility etc.

India is a cosmopolitan country, so autonomy has a great regional variation. There are many approaches to assess the degree of empowerment among women. One of the factors of regional difference is the participation of female population in the labour force. For example, in South India, wet rice cultivation is more prevalent than in North India. In South India, women are more engaged in this cultivation than the wheat production of North India (Bardhan, 1974). Earning status of women is one of the key factors towards decision-making power of women. The paid workers has the natural advantage of taking decisions about how money should be spent along with taking decisions on other aspects of life compared to a non-earning women. The state policies regarding gender equality vary which lead to variations in autonomy in different states and regions of India (Jeffrey, 1993).

Autonomy has a multi-dimensional aspects such as civil, political, social, economic, cultural participation and rights. So to measure the degree of autonomy, its associated various factors have to be measured. Family is the smallest area where women can share or control over the resources. But gender inequality in the family level is manifested by a weaker role of women in decision-making and less control over resources and restrictions in physical movements by women. According to Jejeebhoy (1998) “.....while women’s autonomy is indeed multidimensional, at least three dimensions - decision making, mobility and access to economic resources- are closely related in all settings, irrespective of region or religion”.

In anthropological approaches, women’s autonomy is also dependent on social organization, kinship, marriage patterns etc. In India, after marriage the brides usually go to a completely unknown family which ultimately affect the position of women.

In India the study of women’s empowerment is scanty. The study on its regional variation is also very rare. On the basis of women’s decision making power in different sphere of life, women’s autonomy has been judged in three-fold ways in this paper: Firstly, to investigate the percentage involved in decision making power of women in socio-cultural, socio-economic and health aspects of their own lives; Secondly, the assessment of regulatory factors or ability to formulate the decision making power and thirdly, the comparative account of women’s empowerment and its associated factors through the comparison between working (paid and un-paid workers) and non-working women.

Materials and methods:

For this study we have used the National Family Health Survey (NFHS – II) data conducted by the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) Mumbai in 1998-99. The study analysis is based on 70,280 ever married reproductive aged women of (15-49) years from all Indian states that existed at the time of the survey. The survey includes women in the sample households who were usually resident or who were visitors or who stayed in the sample households the night before the interview.

The variables through which women’s empowerment has been assessed are the decision making powers in four aspects of life such as household, economic, health care and mobility. Household decision making power involves the criteria of cooking and buying jewelry. Decision making related to economic autonomy are assessed through whether women can spend money for the family members or for herself. Regarding health care autonomy, it was seen whether women can take decision about health care and lastly, it has been seen whether the women have the freedom of movement to relatives house or market.

The background variables of assessing empowerment of women are: type of places, age-groups of women, educational attainment of women and their husbands, occupational categories of women and their husbands, nutritional status of women through Body Mass Index (followed by WHO, 2003) standard of living index (followed by NFHS –II) and head of house-hold.

To see the differentials of women’s autonomy in different states and zone of India, percentage distribution has been made. Logistic regression of women’s autonomy has also been carried out to see the simultaneous effect of covariates on decision making. It is used here because the dependent variables are dichotomous. All the independent variables for regression are also dichotomous. The reference categories for different independent variables are ‘rural’ residence, ‘15-30’ age groups, ‘illiteracy’ for women and their husbands, ‘no occupation’ for both women and their husbands; ‘not working & unpaid’ worker, ‘malnourished (BMI is below 18.5)’ women , ‘low & middle’ SLI and ;male’ household head. The statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS, version 12.0) has been used for all the analysis . Significance of levels of ‘p’ values have been considered to see the degree of effect of each variable on the women’s autonomy .

Findings:

In this paper women’s empowerment has been measured in the light of some decision-making power regarding domestic, economic, health and mobility related areas.

Household level decisions:

Cooking:

It is expected that married women in India are most likely to participate in the decision about what to cook. State-wise difference may be there but overall 72 percent Indian women make decisions of their own about cooking (Table-1). There is not much variation in the percentages among the different states and regions. The lowest percentages have been observed in Jammu and Kerala- the two extreme states. Jammu is one of the Muslim dominated underdeveloped and Kerala is one of the most developed states in India. Women’s participation in household decision making alone or jointly with others increases with age suggesting that autonomy increases with age. It is found from the Table-4 that illiterate women are more involved in the decision of cooking. Proportion of self decision about cooking is quite lower in female headed household. The possible reason may be her external activities. Significant difference in the decision of cooking has been found in the working status of women (Table-8a).

Buying Jewelry:

In India 37 percent of women paid earners have a right to take decision how money will be spent in the family (Table-3). Now one can imagine the situation of other women about purchasing jewelry. The percentage of women who can buy jewelry of their own (7.9%) is much less than 37%. This percentage among the paid workers is 11.8% (Table 5). Table-1 shows that the states vary from 2.5 percent in Assam to 26 percent in Goa (Table-1). The states with higher levels of self decision has been found in Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, West Bengal, Karnataka and Kerala. As mentioned above age has a significant effect on purchasing jewelry (Table-7). Women in Female-headed households, especially the female heads, have more power in taking decisions to buy jewelry.

Economic access to money:

Women’s economic access to money has been measured through their participation in monetary matters. It is found from the Table-1 that about 62 percent of women have access to money. However, it may not imply that they exercise this power alone. Usually they spend money with consultation with others, which include husband. Access to money by women is highest in western region (71.3%) especially in Goa (82.6%) (Table 1). State-wise maximum has been found in Meghalaya (83.5%). Acess to money among the different categories of workers are similar to the overall percentages which is evident from the pair wise correlations of these variables being around 0.9.

Actual economic power of women can not be measured through the access of money, but can be measured through whether they spend it of their own or with consultation with others. Stages of development have significant role in the percentages of women who can spend money of their own. But socio-cultural and religious background are also important factors in the decision making process of how money should be spent. If we look into the paid women workers only, New Delhi, Goa, Jammu, Sikkim, Manipur, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh etc. have the highest percentages in this regard (Table 3). The reason for being Jammu & Kashmir and Goa being at the top may be found in the religions. Most people in Goa are Chritians whereas Jammu & Kashmir is Muslim populated state. Punjab and New Delhi are two of the most developed states in India. But we cannot explain by the same reasoning why Kerala is lagging behind. Also, variation of percentages is very high in the North-east states. It has as low as 9.9% in Nagaland and as high as 64.8% in Sikkim. Participation of husband in the decision making process of women is not very marked except in Tripura. Consultation with other members are more often made especially in the North-east states.

Self health care:

Self health care is essential in the light of woman autonomy as she looks after the whole family. State-wise percentages (Table-2) show that high self health caring states are Kerala, Tamil Nadu (from South), New Delhi, Punjab (from North), Goa, Maharastra (from West) and Assam and Sikkim (from North-East). Normally we expect that working mothers are more aware of the health care and take decisions about health care compared to non-working mothers (Table-6). But in actual practice it is not so. However, working mothers are distinctly more empowered than working unpaid workers on this aspect. Socio-cultural factors like age and residence are very important in increasing self decision. Regression analysis (Table-8B) also proves that almost in all zones these two are very important. Other independent factors like sex of household have also a significant role in measuring health care.

Mobility related:

Women’s free movement can be considered as a fundamental measure of autonomy. If persons other than the women themselves determine whether women members in the family can or can not go outside their house, many areas of functioning may be closed to women. A tremendous fluctuation is found in case of mobility in different regions of India. States of west zone (Table-2) are quite free whereas in the orthodox states like Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jammu and the states of eastern and most of the states of north eastern zone the situation is just the opposite. Table-6 shows that a higher percentage of working women can take decisions to go to market compared to non-working and unpaid working mothers. So is the case for going to relatives house except for North East and East Zones. Regression analysis (Table-8c) shows that there is significant effect of some independent factors like residence, age, literacy, working status, household standard of living and sex of the household head on the mobility of women.

Regression analysis shows that husband’s occupation has no influence on the women empowerment except for cooking. It may be added that husband’s education has influence on empowerment. Age has the maximum influence on empowerment for all aspects

Discussion and conclusion:

The study reveals the women’s autonomy through the decision making power on different aspects of life such as household, access to money, self-health care and freedom of movements to relative’s house or to the market. It covers 70,280 women of reproductive age (15-49) of different states and zones of India. The study also provides socio-cultural and socio-economic variations in the level of empowerment.

Our result indicates that there exists a great regional variation in the levels of women’s autonomy. Highest autonomy in household such as cooking has been seen in North-east zone and lowest in North zone. In state-wise distribution, greater autonomy has been seen in women of Nagaland, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in case of cooking and Goa, Kerala, Tripura, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu in case of buying jewelry. And lower percentages have been found in Jammu, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh etc. for cooking and Nagaland, Punjab in buying jewelry. South zone and North zone show highest and lowest autonomy in buying jewelry respectively. In regards to economic aspect, i.e. access to money, highest autonomy has been seen in West zone and lowest in Central zone. State wise the higher degrees are found in Meghalaya, Goa, Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu and lowest in Nagaland, Assam etc.

State wise distribution of health care autonomy of women for themselves shows high percentages in Kerala, New Delhi, Assam, Tamil Nadu etc, and less in Nagaland, Manipur, Orissa etc. Highest empowerment is seen in West Zone and lowest in East zone.

Greater freedom of movements is found in West zone and the lowest is in Central zone. When seen State wise, greater mobility is found in Goa, Gujarat, Maharastra, Tamil Nadu etc, and it is lesser in Jammu, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Nagaland, Orissa, West Bengal etc.

The striking feature is that among the paid workers, decision making power in spending the earnings are seen to be high in Jammu, Goa, New Delhi and low in Nagaland, Mizoram, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh etc. Zonewise, highest degree is found in North zone and lowest in Central zone. Women’s autonomy through the comparison among three working categories viz. non-working, working (paid) and working (unpaid) is seen to vary in different spheres of cooking, buying jewelry. Earning women have greater access to decision making power. But in case of access to money, there is no significant difference between non-working and working (paid) women. Among the other two of decision makings such as mobility and health care, non-working women shows lesser ability in mobility. In health care ability, lesser autonomy are found among the working (unpaid) women than non-working and working (paid ) women.