Empower the Women, Develop the Nation! – Validating the Women Empowerment Scale

The paper exemplifies the pilot study of the research work proceeding with the intention of developing and validating the measures of women empowerment. Women empowerment is measured with special reference to the Women, members of Self Help Groups (SHGs). Women empowerment is divided into three dimension, namely, personal empowerment, social empowerment and economic empowerment. These dimensions comprises constructs namely self development, decision making, freedom from domination of family, improvement in social status, freedom of mobility, political and legal awareness and ability to make small and large purchases. The pilot study proceeded with the data collection from 95 SHGs women. The model developed was validated by adopting convergent validity, discriminant validity, construct validity tests. The data was also checked for its reliability using Cronbach's Alpha reliability test. Finally the completion of this pilot study furnishes and indicates that the scheme of this research is of exploratory research. Ultimately, it overlays the measures for the formulation of the strategies that facilitates the empowerment of women and indeed paves path for the strong foundation of the development of the society, in turn the State and Nation.