Parental Property and Women Empowerment among Brahmin Women : A Study of Gitanagar VDC, Chitwan, Nepal

Abstract

This study entitled "Parental Property and Women Empowerment". The parental property entitled as important factor to women’s empowerment and which was considered as an important aspect because it not only provides social security but also empowers the owner and the family in the larger extend. Very little attention has been given to women’s control and equal rights in parental property in Gitanagar. This study has been an important step to the women in Gitanagar that land ownership was one of the main tools that can improve women’s status, together with other policies, programs and activities. But, there were many questions that can be relevant to ask in relation to this presumption and the general dynamics of land ownership and women’s empowerment. The objectives of the study were to access the socio-economic context of Brahmin women, examine parental property and women's empowerment and examine role of parental property on women's empowerment. Based on primary source of data used by questionnaires 200 sample sizes were taken from different demographic, socio-economic and political characteristics. In the study area all respondents were female and women empowerment showed that women’s influence in parental property empowers them economically, socially and politically and insists that women with stronger control over land were less likely to become economically vulnerable. By granting the poor women legal title to land, the owners not only have more security, but also can join the formal economy and access to credit using their land as collateral and generate capital and begin to prosper which finally lead to women’s empowerment. The major findings of this study was women who have parental property were more empowered and those who have less parental property are deprived from higher quality education, better job opportunities, deprived of having decision on marriage, bank accounts, less personal property and dependent on the husbands.