Status and Impact of Women Empowerment: A Case Study of Lakhanpur Village of Kamal Rural Municipality, Jhapa

Abstract

This study analyzed status and impact of women empowerment, particularly in Lakhanpur Village of Kamal Rural Municipality, Jhapa. The general objective of this study was to explain role of empowered women in household and social level. Likewise, the specific objectives were to examine socio-economic status of selected empowered women, to identify the causes and consequences of gender inclusion as well as to analyze changing role of women in household/social level due to women empowerment. This study depends mainly upon primary data. Primary data were obtained from the field survey through household, observation, and informal interview. For the study, the total sample size was 150 households selected from ward no. 7 of Kamal Rural Municipality using purposive sampling method. Out of the 150 respondents, 46 percent respondents were from age group 30-49 years followed by 32.67 percent respondents from age group 15-29 years. Majority of the respondents were married (90%) where 6.4 percent widow and 2.4 percent separated respondents. More than three quarters of female had got married within their age 10-19 years where as 50 percent respondents had got married at the age group 15-19 years. And the mean age of marriage was 18.91 years of the respondents. Among 150 sampled households, only 27 female headed households were found and the remaining 123 households were male headed households. Majority of the respondents had attended the primary level education (32.97%). Only 2 percent respondents had attended Bachelor of Master Level education. Most of the respondents (69.33%) reported that they were not interested for further study due to economic problem, traditional belief, because of her family and husband; they had not got the opportunity to study. Majority of the respondents had taken decision on their children’s education in co-operation with their husband. Majority of the respondents had taken decision to buy or sell any surplus food in the household. It was found that 24.42 percent respondents took her decision to participate in any social activities. The socio-cultural setting and practices were the main causes of exclusion where lack of education, economic dependency, lack of awareness among women and poor mechanism of governments were also seen the cause of women’s exclusion.