INFORMATION MANAGEMENT BEHAVIOUR AND SOCIO ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT OF MANIPURI RURAL WOMEN PARTICIPATED IN FISHERIES IN MANIPUR

Abstract

The study, investigated the information management behavior and socio-economic empowerment of women, who participated in fisheries activities in Manipur. One hundred and twenty women formed the sample for the study. The Information Management Behaviour of the women was operationalised as the process of identification and collection of information on fisheries technologies of origin, evaluating, storing, updating and retrieving it whenever necessary. Majority of the respondents belonged to medium category of (64.2%) information management behaviour, followed by low (18.3%) and high (17.5%) categories. Majority of the respondents used personal contacts for seeking information on different aspect of fisheries. Around 97.5 % of the respondents had the habit of evaluation of the information through discussion with the family members followed by discussion with neighbours and on the light of past experiences. Almost 94% of the respondents followed the method of 'memorization' for storage of farm information and 33.33% of the respondents were 'taking down in a note book/diary for storage of farm information. Chi-square showed highly significant association between empowerment and information management behaviour of the sampled women in the study area. Positive and significant relationship was also found between information management behavior of women with their education, level of participation in fisheries activities, experience in fisheries, management orientation, economic motivation, annual income and knowledge level. Key words: Information management, information seeking, information evaluation, information preservation, women, fisheries