Socio-economic Security in Rural Areas of Bundelkhand: A Household Level Analysis

Abstract

The term social security has been used to refer to the result achieved by a comprehensive and successful series of measures for protecting the public (or a large sector of it) from the economic distress that, in the absence of such measures, would be caused by the stoppage of earnings in sickness, unemployment or old age and after death; for making available to that same public, medical care as needed; and for subsidising families bringing up young children. The study was conducted purposively in Bundelkhand region, which comprises of Uttar Pradesh (7 districts) and Madhya Pradesh (6 districts). Two districts from each state viz. Lalitpur and Banda from Uttar Pradesh, whereas, Datia and Damoh from Madhya Pradesh were selected. Then, two blocks from each district were selected randomly. Two villages from each block and 20 respondents from each village were randomly selected; thus, making the total sample size of 320 respondents for the study. Results show that the majority (59.26%) of the respondents among marginal farmers had low social security, followed by medium and high social security i.e. 33.34 and 7.40 per cent respectively. The variables such as education, social participation, annual income and extension contact had positive and highly signifi cant relationship with economic security at the 1 per cent level of signifi cance. The results showed that 55.30 per cent variability towards economic security was due to independent variables included in the study and the remaining was due to some other factors. The fi tted regression model was observed to be signifi cant at the 1 per cent level of signifi cance.