Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture

The paper computes the current empowerment situation, the inclusion of women in decision making and gender equality within the household in the agriculture sector of Punjab, Pakistan. It follows an estimation approach that is based on a multidimensional poverty index methodology proposed by Alkire and Foster. Women's empowerment in agriculture index (WEA Index) methodology combines two corresponding sub-indices. The first index is five domains of empowerment (5DE Index) and the second is Gender equality index (GE Index). Five domains are Production, Resources, Income, Leadership, and Time. After analysis, the Overall WEA Index appraises that Leadership, Income and Resources domains respectively add the most share to the disempowerment of women. Men are not completely empowered in all the five domains but relatively they are in many advantages in many indicators than their partners. Overall in Punjab women are relatively more empowered in the time domain and production domain. The current situation of women's empowerment needs a further supportive policy or program implications in the area for better consequences in the future.