Economic Empowerment of Staying Behind Women Whose Husbands have Migrated

Abstract

Women's empowerment is one of the major topics of debate today. On the one side, we pledge to reduce gender inequality, talk about their fundamental rights, and make efforts to make them empowered and on the other side, several cases of their exploitation and extortion come across in our family and society. The male dominant society and mindset are assumed to be the most notorious cause of gender inequality. In this paper, we try to analyse women's empowerment in the absence of male members. Male out migrat ion is common everywhere and largely prevailed in Indian rural society. Hence, the empowerment of staying behind women ’ whose husbands have migrated is analysed through the NFHS 5 data by using the z test of difference of proportion. The result shows that staying behind women ’ are significantly empowered in many aspects including decisions over their own health, control over using their money, visiting relatives ’ houses, household purchases, and others.