Measuring Rural Women Empowerment through Index Construction in Mohmand District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Abstract

Sustainable Development (SD) is not possible without empowering women as they make up half of the world population. The aim of the present study was to calculate the index of socio-economic empowerment of the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) for women empowerment in the two selected villages i.e. Baro Kheel and Yousaf Kheel, tribal Mohmand district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. A sample size of 150 BISP registered/beneficiary women was randomly selected and interviewed through survey method with the help of pre-designed structure questionnaire. Data was analyzed by constructing/calculating an index having value between 0 (no empowerment) and 1(complete empowerment). In this study the index of empowerment was divided in to Likert scale of no empowerment (0-0.20), less empowerment (0.21-0.40), empowerment (0.41-0.60), moderate empowerment (0.61-0.80) and highly empowerment (0.81-1.0). Findings of the study pointed that women in Baro Kheel were moderately empowered (0.65) in economic dimension as compared to Yousaf Kheel where the index of economic empowerment was high (0.70). The index of social empowerment indicating women were highly empowered in Yousaf Kheel (0.79) comparable to Baro Kheel (0.73). The legal status of women was moderately empowered in both villages Baro Kheel (0.62) and Yousaf Kheel (0.68). Women in Baro Kheel and Yousaf Kheel were moderately empowered (0.59 and 0.54) in physiological dimension of empowerment respectively. The value of index in the decision making empowerment dimension indicate that women were less empowered (0.55) in the study area. The overall value of the dimensions in the area were moderate for social (0.76) and economic (0.67) dimension followed by legal (0.65) dimension. The physiological (0.56) and decision making (0.55) fall in the just empowerment. The study as a whole conclude that as a results of the BISP interventions women empowerment in different dimensions were different, but as a whole the BISP makes women empowered in the different socio-economic dimensions of life. The study recommends a more compressive and sustainable strategies of the income generations with women participation by self-reliance activities to make them empower for future sustainable development.