Women's Assets Research Articles

Appalachian Women: A Study of Resiliency Assets and Cultural Values

ABSTRACT There is scant literature addressing Appalachian women, their resiliency, and their cultural values. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore what constitutes resiliency for Appalachian women. The following research questions were explored: (a) Are Appalachian values reflected in Appalachian women's perceived resiliency during their school-age years, ages 5–18; and (b) if so, which Appalachian values emerged in these women's external and internal developmental assets? Ten Appalachian women were interviewed and asked to reflect on developmental assets during their school-age years. The study results indicated a relationship between developmental resiliency assets during youth as they corresponded with nine Appalachian values. The results indicate that Appalachian women's cultural values foster their strengths and resilience. This study supports the significance of practitioners acknowledging the importance of cultural values in counseling strategy. Implications and suggestions for future research are suggested

Intrahousehold Resource Allocation and Women’s Bargaining Power: New Evidence from Bangladesh

By using data from a relatively recent nationally representative survey of Bangladesh, this paper investigates the relationship between intrahousehold resource allocation and women's bargaining power. Along with the two regularly used bargaining power indicators, viz. resources brought at marriage and earned incomes by men and women, an index of empowerment has also been constructed using the information on various social, economic and cultural practices under which women operate to find out if their improved position can have any significant influence on household budgetary allocations. Regression results reveal significant differential effects of men‟s and women's incomes and assets on the budget shares of different goods while the women empowerment index also registers statistical significance in most cases. Therefore, in contrast to the so-called common preference or the unitary model of household behavior the evidence seems to suggest that women's bargaining power and improved empowerment do influence intrahousehold resource allocation.

Marital Violence and Women's Employment and Property Status: Evidence from North Indian Villages

Dominant development policy approaches recommend women's employment on the grounds that it facilitates their empowerment, which in turn is believed to be instrumental in enhancing women's well-being. However, empirical work on the relationship between women's employment status and their well-being as measured by freedom from marital violence yields an ambiguous picture. Motivated by this ambiguity, this paper draws on testimonies of men and women and data gathered from rural Uttar Pradesh, to examine the effect of women's employment and asset status as measured by their participation in paid work and their ownership of property, respectively, on spousal violence. Unlike the existing literature, we treat women's work status and violence as simultaneously determined and find that women's engagement in paid work and ownership of property, are associated with sharp reductions in marital violence.

Strategies for overcoming economic marginalization among rural women in Imo state, Nigeria

This study investigated the effects of various gender sensitive campaigns on women's assets and access to resources, the coping strategies utilized and the determinants of use of the coping strategies by rural women in Imo state, Nigeria. A total of 300 randomly sampled rural women in the state provided the data through interview schedules and structured questionnaires. These were analyzed with the aid of simple percentages, frequency tables, means and Ordinary Least Square Multiple Regression Technique at 0.05 level of significance. The results indicated that the gender sensitive campaigns brought about improvement in women's access to extension, contribution to decision making and increased the realization that women have potentials. The women among others utilized mixed farming, mixed cropping, engaged in thrifts/Isusu groups and food vending. The women's marital status, income, number of sources of information, education, family size and farming experience were related with the utilization of the coping strategies. It was however recommended that institutional and organizational reforms should be undertaken to accommodate the interest of women as well as enlightenment campaign to sensitize them on alternative coping strategies. International Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences Vol. 2(1) 2006: 1-6

Resources at Marriage and Intrahousehold Allocation: Evidence from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and South Africa*

AbstractWe test the unitary versus collective model of the household using specially designed data from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and South Africa. Human capital and individual assets at the time of marriage are used as proxy measures for bargaining power. In all four countries, we reject the unitary model as a description of household behaviour, but fail to reject the hypothesis that households are Pareto‐efficient. In Bangladesh and South Africa, women's assets increase expenditure shares on education, while in Ethiopia it is men's assets that have this effect. These increases have different implications for boys and girls across countries, however.

Current Contraceptive Use in India: Has the Role of Women's Education Been Overemphasised?

Using the recent Indian National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data, this article analyses the factors determining the current contraceptive use in rural and urban West Bengal in eastern India. A bivariate probit model with selection is used to determine the likelihood of not being sterilised and that of currently using some traditional or modern reversible method of contraception among non-sterilised women. Our results suggest that male and female sterilisation is a popular method among the poorer couples with little assets, poor education and more living children. More literate women are, however, more likely to use various reversible methods of contraception though the effect of husband's education remains insignificant. Relative to women's education or various household assets, the effect of belonging to an upper caste household is more pronounced on the current use of contraception, especially among rural women. Simulations of the effect of eliminating illiteracy suggest that the quantititive significance of education is small despite its robust statistical significance. Thus there is limited effect of household assets and women's education on current use of contraception in our sample.

Securing Women's Property Rights: Problems of Good Governance and Establishing Norms of Economic Functioning

The article deals with the post-project experiences of women who acquired fish farming rights in ponds on government land. In the strongly patriarchal situation of Bangladesh, the establishment of systems of good governance is needed for such redistribution of assets to vulnerable women to take place. Further, it is also necessary to build coalitions against men's use of violence and other methods to forcibly grab the income or assets of women. The design ofpoverty reduction and asset redistribution approaches has to take account of the need for a long period of support and collateral-free group credit for poor women to be able to establish secure user rights in assets transferred to them, and to develop their economic assets. The successful cases, which are more than half of the total, demonstrate the substantial build up of assets by the women and their gains in security and social standing.

Securing Women’s Property Rights: Problems of Good Governance and Establishing Norms of Economic Functioning

The article deals with the post-project experiences of women who acquired fish farming rights in ponds on government land. In the strongly patriarchal situation of Bangladesh, the establishment of systems of good governance is needed for such redistribution of assets to vulnerable women to take place. Further, it is also necessary to build coalitions against men’s use of violence and other methods to forcibly grab the income or assets of women. The design ofpoverty reduction and asset redistribution approaches has to take account of the need for a long period of support and collateral-free group credit for poor women to be able to establish secure user rights in assets transferred to them, and to develop their economic assets. The successful cases, which are more than half of the total, demonstrate the substantial build up of assets by the women and their gains in security and social standing.

Differential Asset Conversion: Class and Gendered Pathways to Selective Colleges

This article elaborates Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital conversion by specifying a mechanism of differential asset conversion that illuminates the gendered postsecondary educational attainment of women and compares it with that posited for men in status attainment theory. Because young women's economic, cultural, and educational assets generally convert to attendance at postsecondary institutions and selective colleges at lower rates, women need to have more of these assets and to have additional assets to achieve the same attainments as men. Overall, there are major differences in the postsecondary outcomes of students who attend public and elite private boarding schools. Attending an elite private boarding school appears to minimize the gendered pathways to postsecondary institutions and selective colleges that affect public school students

Women in the State Legislatures

EARLY HALF A CENTURY has passed since the Nineteenth Amendment gave American women the right to vote and, with it, the opportunity to assume political leadership positions. A recent article by the author' examined the biographies of the seventy women who have served in Congress since 1917. This report, a continuation of a series on women in public office, focuses on women in the state legislatures. The purposes of this paper are: (1) to review the trends in women's representation and party affiliation in both state legislatures and Congress from 1920 to 1964; (2) to discuss the effects of geography on the impact women have made in the state legislatures; (3) to examine the background and political experience of a sample of 185 women in the 1963-64 state legislatures; and (4) to report their reasons for seeking political office and their evaluation of women's assets and liabilities in political life.