Determinants of Women Empowerment at Domestic and Non-domestic Issues: Evidence from Chapai Nawabganj District in Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper makes an attempt to investigate the determinants of women empowerment at domestic and non-domestic issues in Bangladesh by examining the situation prevailing in one particular area of Chapai Nawabganj district using the information from 500 ever married women within the reproductive span (15-49 years). Our study documented that, although a large percentage of women were enjoying empowerment at various domestic and non domestic related issues still it is not in a satisfactory level. Only 4.5% women could take decision for child health care activities and 51.6% could caste vote with their own decision and 59.0% respondents could handled the daily expenditure for the family. Findings revealed that 79.7% respondent's expressed their opinion having freedom of movement outside the home without husband's permission and 83.0% respondents gave their opinion for equal right in education of son and daughter which seem to be a good indication regarding women's empowerment. From the logistic regression model considering decision-making power for household affairs as the dependent variable we saw that urban respondents, respondents living in combined family, having mass media facility have more decision making power regarding household affairs. The model also shows that as the level of education of the respondents increases their decision making power also rises From the logistic regression model concerning decision-making power about casting vote the main contributing factors that have significant impact on women's decisions making power towards vote were found to be respondent's education, type of family, mass media exposure, age at marriage, daily household expenditure, freedom of movement, decision for household affairs and women's participation as representative.

Key words: household affairs; freedom of movement; caste of vote; daily expenditure; logistic regression analysis.

DOI: 10.3126/dsaj.v3i0.2784

Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology Vol.3 2009 143-162