A Spatial Analysis of Human Development and the Level of Women Empowerment in the Karnataka State

Abstract

The present investigation aims at analyzing the regional disparities in the levels of Human development and finding out the relationship between the Human development and the level of women empowerment in the Karnataka state. Five variables namely; Female Literacy rate to total literacy rate, Sex ratio, Child sex ratio, working female Population to total working population and Total crime against women have been taken into consideration to assess the levels of women empowerment of the state. District wise secondary data has been collected from census and the Karnataka State human development report. The Composite index method has been computed to ascertain the level of women empowerment, which is depicted in choropleth map, and the correlation co-efficient, is used to find out the relationship between Human development index and the level of women empowerment. The analysis reveals that the southern and coastal parts of Karnataka have a higher share of human development index and higher level of women empowerment. The study also reveals that there is a positive relationship between human development and the level of women empowerment in the state.Keywords: Human development index; Women empowerment; Literacy; Working population