Decision Making: A Significant Indicator for Economic Empowerment of Women

Women empowerment is giving rightful power or authority to perform a task either at the household and occupational level. Decision making of women is very much important as it increases their bargaining power and promotes economic empowerment. If women are empowered they would be able to participate in the planning and decision making tasks and contribute to the development programmes and activities independently. Womens confidence and self-esteem increase when they have greater knowledge, economic assets and income-earning capacity, and they are more likely to participate in both private and public decision-making. Low participation is often due to stereotypes, which assign womens influence to the private sphere and mens to the public. The use of quotas and positive action to increase womens participation in decision-making bodies is not enough to ensure their participation, but is an important first step. This present study focuses on women empowerment with an objective to study the decision making authority at household level. Data was gathered through personal interviews using a schedule from a sample of 224 men and women in two villages of Mahbubnagar district, Telangana. The quantitative and qualitative data was collected regarding the decision making power on income, spending, savings, expenditure on purchases, childrens education and marriage decisions etc. Majority of the respondents expressed having decision making authority in matters regarding the household activities. Including women in the decision making at occupational and societal level regarding the financial issues can promote economic empowerment of women at the household, occupational and society level. The study recognizes that there is a strong relationship between decision making authority and womens economic empowerment.