Socio-economic impact of earthquake-2072 in women: A case study of Khokana Lalitpur

Abstract

The thesis entitled " Socio-Economic Impact of Earthquake-2072 In Women, A Case Study of Khokana Lalitpur". The specific objectives of the study are: to examine the present general scenario of the study area after earthquake-2072, to compare the socio-economic status of women before and after earthquake, to analyze the health problems after earthquake, to analyze the educational problems after earthquake. The study attempts to explore and investigate the socio-economic and decisional power of women in the society, so, it is an exploratory as well as descriptive type of study. As the study targeted women, respondents and locations were selected using purposive sampling (the snowballing technique) in collection of data by the researcher. Out of 1,056 households 837 were completely or partially damaged by the earthquake 2072. Among the 837 households, 8 % i.e. 64 household were selected as sample. The findings of the study are none of the respondents were involved in government sector before the earthquake, but after the earthquake, one woman became selected in the local government authority as the ward member. Before the earthquake there 32 respondents were not involved in any institution but after the earthquake only 26 members have not been involved that means 6 members have been involved in different institutions especially in health institution and socio-cultural like mother groups and cooperative groups.The majority of the household depend on agricultural income, 65.62 % of the respondent households has main income source is farming, whereas 21.87% were depend upon wage labour. Status of income and expenditure of respondents shows that before the earthquake there was no deficit but after the earthquake 40.62% had deficit. After the earthquake most of the respondents’ income had been changed. 31.25% respondents’ income had been decreased by below 10,000 whereas 59.38% had no change in income. Before the earthquake, 93.75% had no loans but after the earthquake 65.63% had taken loans more or less. 26.56% had taken loans 100,000-500,000 rupees. Almost all respondents have health issues during earthquake. 18.75% had mental problems and 15.63% had been disabled, out of them 10% had severe and normal degree of disabilities. Food and nutrition supply was also affected during earthquake. 45.31% had no enough food and nutrition during the earthquake, among them 19 respondent had fever, diarrhoea and anxiety. The education status of women is 29.69% of women are illiterate and only 6.25% of women were studied more than bachelor level. During the earthquake, most of the schools were closed for more than months but after few months there is regularity in the education. Hence, 85.94% of the students were regular in schools whereas 7.81% of the students dropout due to earthquake, among them 80% were boys. There was a great impact of socio-economic status of women in Khokana. But in involvement in various sector after the earthquake, they had involved in socio-cultural groups like mothers' group and other local health institutions. Lots of people died during and after the earth quake 2072. Most of the respondent had health issues during and after the earthquake. There was a disturbance on education of the school going students during the earthquake. All the educational institution were closed for few months. But after a few months, the students went to schools regularly.