Current status and determinants of Women Empowerment in India: Evidence from NFHS-4

Alok Kumar¹ , Subhi Srivastava² , Sangeeta Kansal³

Section:Research Paper, Product Type: Journal-Paper
Vol.6 , Issue.1 , pp.35-42, Jan-2020

Online published on Jan 31, 2020

Copyright © Alok Kumar, Subhi Srivastava, Sangeeta Kansal . This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 

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Abstract :
The study uses data conducted in 2015-16 for National Family Health Survey for India, targeting currently married women of age 15 to 49 years Different items related to women`s empowerment present in the survey were identified and principal component analysis was used to extract the components by using a validated index developed elsewhere named as SWPER index. Eighteen items related to women`s empowerment were selected and four components were retained after rotation, identified as four dimensions of empowerment; Participation in decision making, attitudes on physical violence by husband, attitudes towards negotiating sexual relations with husband and freedom of movement. Descriptive analysis and linear regression models were used for examining empowerment and their relationship to demographic processes. This study presents the empowerment index for all states measured using various indices considered suitable for the study and presented a snapshot of Indian society obtained at the time of the NFHS- fourth-round survey. The results revealed from this study show that wealth quintile has no significant association with the decision-making participation and freedom of movement but women in the richest wealth quintile report a significantly higher score on their positive attitude towards physical abuse and refusal of sexual relations. In addition, other factors like age have found to be positively associated with participation in decision-making and freedom of movement.

Key-Words / Index Term :
NFHS, SWPER index, Principal component analysis, Empowerment

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