Status of women in Rautahat District

Abstract

This study has mainly focused on the status of women in terms of empowerment in mobility,participation in household decision making and nutrition. This study is based on the secondarysource of data taken from PAF Monitoring and Evaluation Survey. The study has covered 930households of the 41 rural areas of Rautahat District and the whole analysis is based on Caste/ethnicity. This study has tried to explain the empowerment status of women in terms of mobility. It wasfound that most of the women (64%) can visit the places like maternal home, local market andreligious institutions alone but only few of them can do without the permission of householdhead. It has found that empowerment status of Muslim women is poor than others. Terai Dalitand Muslim women have poor nutritional status in comparison of others. Participation of women in terms of decision-making in household is betterthan that of mobility status. Almost 82 percent of womenresponded that theywere participated in decision-making process of household properties. TeraiJanjati women were comparatively poor condition than others in terms ofcontrol over household income. To expose the nutritional status of women aged 15-49, allthe women of surveyed households ofthose ages were measured by taking height and weight. It was found that Terai Dalits andMuslims were nutritionally weak than other cast/ethnic groups. Only about 61 percent Muslimhave normal BMI, which is lower than the rest groups.