FEMALE WORK FORCE PARTICIPATION AND FEMALE EMPOWERMENT IN ANDHRA PRADESH: A REGIONAL STUDY

Empowerment of women becomes a powerful mechanism to improve people's welfare and human development in a region. Empowering women improves the wellbeing of the household and leads to better out comes for children.in other words the intergenerational transmission of poverty can be arrested, if women are empowered. From the ages, female literacy rate is considered as one of the effective tool to empower the women of india.in the other way around, work participation rate is also a tool which encourages women empowerment. Work participation rate has directly linked with the development of the society and also house hold. According to a report released be national statistical survey 2020, Kerala have the highest literacy rate with 96.2 per cent whereas Andhra Pradesh is at bottom with 66.4 per cent. Male literacy is 73.4 per cent while female literacy is 59.5 per cent in Andhra Pradesh. These rates in the state were a serious concern for social science research studies. This paper addresses the role of women literacy and work participation in the process of empowerment with special reference to gender. The study used the data from 2011 census. The paper examines the interstate disparity of literacy rate and female work participation for the empowerment of women in Andhra Pradesh. The paper concludes with the observations and suggestions.