Economic Empowerment of Rural Unskilled Women Workers: A Case Study in Agglomerating Centers of Rongjuli TD Block in Goalpara District of Assam, India

Abstract

Productive and gainful employment of human resource is one of the major objectives of policy perspectives of any economy. Rural economy of India is characterized by a massive presence of unskilled as well as merely paid women workers who are engaged in household level activities that constitute a major part of the total workforce. Rural women workforce plays significant roles in the economy who participate in larger number of economic activity in agriculture and allied sector. The ever growing population and shrinkage of operational holding have resulted on searching for employment opportunities by the unskilled women workers. The changing socio-economic structure in the post-reform period has emerged an environment for economic empowerment even for unskilled women workers in rural areas. Presently a number of rural women who are unskilled seemed to participate in various informal employment opportunities such as self-employed as small trader in spot market or roadside hubs, casual worker in business establishment etc. mostly in the agglomerating centers of Goalpara district of Assam. Such phenomenon of growing participation of unskilled rural women workers needs a look in micro level to assess their empowerment status in particular and their significant role in the economy in general.Therefore, a study on the issue of economic empowerment of rural unskilled women workers in general and particular to the agglomerating areas of Rangjuli TD Block in Goalpara district of Assam, India has been chosen. The present paper seeks to achieve the objectives of assessing the economic status of rural women work participants, identify the prominent activities, and identify the bottlenecks and to search the facilitating factors of economic empowerment.