Impact of household decision making power on women's empowerment in India: evidences from NFHS-3 Survey

Ajeet Kumar, Institute of Rural Research and Development
Nalin Singh Negi, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee

Empowerment of women refers to giving decision-making power to women in social, economic and political sphere of life. The study reveals the women’s autonomy through the decision making power on multidimensional aspects of life such as household, access to money, access to health care and establishing the social relations within and outside the community. The study also provides socio-cultural and socio-economic variations in the level of empowerment. State wise distribution of health care autonomy of women for themselves shows high percentages in the states 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. A prominent feature is that household and domestic female workers have greater decision making power than paid workers. Among the other two of decision makings such as mobility and health care, non-working women shows lesser ability in mobility.