Women in Household Decision Making in Magar Community (A Case Study of Dhurkot Rural Municipality, Gulmi)

Abstract

The study has been conducted in Magar women in household decision making with the aim to find out the role of women in Magar community. It aims to find out social, cultural and economic role performed by women in the Magar community, to assess changing role of Magar women and to find out problems as faced by women in Magar community. This study area is selected in Magar community of Dhurkot Rural Municipality of Gulmi District. It will take ward no. 1 and few areas of Vujeldhara of the Dhurkot Rural Municipality. Descriptive ethnographic research design is applied for this study. Therefore, it is a descriptive ethnographic study of women’s role in Magar community. There are altogether 362 Magar households in the village in the study area. This study area is homogenous. Therefore, only 60 households out of 362 households in the area was selected purposively. Collected data through various methods were analyzed mainly descriptively as well as statistically. Quantitative information were analyzed in simple tabulation by process of numbers and percentage. Most of the families are joint families where female have more work burdens such as cooking, cleaning, caring and rearing etc. Male’s prominent role is in marketing and festival celebrating and female’s prominent role is in the cooking, washing, cleaning, food managing, fuel energy managing, agriculture, livestock farming and child caring. 53.6% male and 18.8% female are involved in monetary work such as service, business and daily wages labour. Male are more than female by 34.8% in monetary works. It concludes that male are in the monetary role and women are in the non-monetary role due to lack of education, opportunity and mobility. Women’s contribution in the struggle is great for the subsistence level, yet the division of labour is not strict in Magar community. Male may have to do what normally considered is women’s work such as domestic works. Men and women work side by side in Parma. Women whose husbands are out of the country in the armed services must be able to run their households and farm, thereby equality the abilities between sexes. Therefore, there is gender equality and equity in this community.