Qual Quant DOI 10.1007/s11135-017-0572-x
Impact of women empowerment on rural development in Southern Punjab, Pakistan Irfan Ahmad Baig1 • Zarmina Batool1 • Asghar Ali2 Sajjad Ahmad Baig3 • Muhammad Hashim3 • Muhammad Zia-ur-Rehman3
•
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2017
Abstract Women play an important role in the development of a country. In Pakistan, efforts are being made to empower women in almost every field of life but in rural areas women are still living in miserable conditions. The present study was designed to check the impact of women empowerment on rural development in district Muzaffargarh of punjab province. The data from 120 female respondents have been collected. Different dimensions of women empowerment have been measured, using Ordinary Least Square method. The analysis found that self-esteem, the power of decision making and freedom of mobility mobility were statistically significant factors showing a positive impact on rural development while control over resources was found to be insignificant. It has been suggested that adequate education and job opportunities can play a vital role in empowering the women. Moreover access to media specifically TV can also empower women in a significant way. Keywords Women empowerment OLS Media
1 Introduction Development explains the socio-economic revolution which creates a positive impact on society. It is a wider concept than increasing national income. In developed economies, people utilize their full strength in most of the productive activities. They not only fulfil their own needs but also work for public interest for overall welfare of community. The & Sajjad Ahmad Baig
[email protected];
[email protected] 1
Department of Economics and Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences, PMAS- Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan
2
Institute of Agriculture and Resource Economics, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan
3
Department of Management Sciences, National Textile University, Faisalabad, Pakistan
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role of men and women is equally important in the development of a nation. Sustainable development can only be achieved if women are given their legal rights in all fields of life. Special emphasis should be given to the women of lower income groups to attain economic prosperity. Women are the backbone of any country so they should be powerful and confident. In developing countries like Pakistan, women need to be given full attention to ensure sustainable economic growth and development as they constitute almost half of our population. In this regard, the government should play a significant role to abolish the gender discrimination from these countries (Planning Commission 2011). Over the years, in pursuance of the development agenda, women have been placed on the priority list of the policy makers. Despite this, women empowerment is still a poorly understandable phenomenon (Mahmud et al. 2012). Overwhelming research studies across the world revealed that inequality between men and women had taken the form of economic inequality through differentials in literacy rate, employment opportunities, health care facilities and in many other resources (Parveen 2005; West 2006; Amnesty International 2008; Kandpal et al., 2013). The word empowerment refers to the concept of full control on decision making about his or her life and to give more ability to handle different problems in all phases of their life. Dixon-Mueller (1978), Batliwala (1995), Malhotra et al. (2002) and Bryden (2003) also mentioned a number of factors including the degree of control over material and intellectual resources contributing significantly towards women empowerment. There are four kinds of autonomy that is to say ‘‘power within, power with, power to and power over’’. ‘‘Power within’’ indicates self-respect and confidence, ‘‘power with’’ indicates joint awareness, ‘‘power to’’ indicates aptitude construction whereas ‘‘power over’’ indicates difference between authoritative and unreliable (Rowland 1997). Women in most of the rural areas of Pakistan are living under a feudal system where they had no value and deprived of rights given by laws and universal teachings of Islam. Women work in the field and also manage their family responsibilities. The female literacy rate in rural areas is only 33%. Similarly, employment opportunities and the wage rates offered to the rural women are not on par with overall employment opportunities and wages prevailing in the market. Honour killing is also very common in rural areas. The government should take steps for proving education to rural women and should make vocational centres for their better livelihood. In Pakistan, economic empowerment of women helps in reducing many socio-economic problems from our society. It has been observed that with the passage of time, women are changing their priorities due to increasing rate of literacy, new inventions and the trend of migration to urban areas. Now a day’s people are changing their traditional mentalities and women are realizing their importance in the society (Qamar 2005). Women participate in household activities and also act as part of the labour force in the agriculture sector of Pakistan. They sow, reap and then harvest the crops but still their importance is not recognised by our government (Ashfaq et al. 2008). In many regions of Pakistan, feudal system is still being followed, and they are being treated badly by not giving them rights and their proper share in income. The government of Pakistan has made policies related to provoking issues like gender equality and the education of females. At the global level, it has been recognised that by increasing the level of education in females, development can be achieved (GoP 2004). Shoaib et al. (2012) studied women empowerment especially in rural areas of Punjab by considering the effect of education on them. Education is a major tool which enables a woman to know about their duties, independence and much more. It was concluded that education was positively related to women empowerment at the household level.
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Alkire et al. (2013) constructed a comprehensive Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) to measure the women empowerment in the agricultural sector. The Index assessed the empowerment of women in five domains including decisions about agricultural production, access to and decision making power about productive resources, control in the use of income, leadership in the community and time allocation. The second sub index measured the percentage of women whose achievements were at least as high as men in their households and, for women lacking parity, the relative empowerment gap widened with respect to the male in their household. This article documented the development of the WEAI and presented the findings from Bangladesh, Guatemala, and Uganda. Present study was also designed to focus the government programmes and policies that were imparting any significant impacts on the women empowerment in Southern Punjab, Pakistan. Muzaffargarh is one of the main districts of Southern Punjab with a population of more than 3 million. Around 85% of the population of District Muzaffargarh lives in rural areas. District Muzaffargarh is one of the industrially developed areas of the South Punjab with power production units, textile units, sugar mills, cotton ginning and oil industry and a handful of a cottage industry. These units are offering job opportunities to the female population considerably. Moreover, District Muzaffargarh is also an attractive place for the NGOs to work with its central position in South Punjab. The presence of the key player in the social sector has made Muzaffargarh a likely place where women are empowered at the household level as well as in other sectors. In the present study, primary data have been used to determine the existing status of the women empowerment in the district and to evaluate whether a change in women empowerment status is really imparting any impression on local rural development. More specific objectives of the study were to examine the extent of rural women empowerment in the study area belonging to different background and professions. The study also evaluated the impact of women empowerment on rural development in the district and suggested important policy measures in the light of the significant findings of the study.
2 Sampling framework and methodology The study is based on primary data collected from female respondents of different categories i.e. house wives and employed women with a total sample size of 120. Data were collected by a well-structured questionnaire through face to face interviews. The questionnaire was pre-tested for applicable changes if any. The data had been collected randomly from females in district Muzaffargarh. Two tehsils had been selected from the district and then further one union council was selected from these two tehsils. Furthermore, two villages were selected randomly from each union council then 30 females were taken from each randomly selected village. Random sampling was done for employed and unemployed married female correspondents. Only married women were selected because they lived at the same place for a long period so they can have a better impact on development.
2.1 Women empowerment scores Women empowerment scores were constructed by using the methods of Jejeebhoy (2002) and Mahmud et al. (2012). Four dimensions of the women empowerment, i.e. Self-esteem, Role in decision making, Freedom of Mobility and Control over resources were
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individually measured through an index constructed by using Cronbach’s alpha technique. Individual indices were constructed, using important determinants discussed below.
2.2 Description of empirical models of women empowerment The sores were generated for four pillars of women empowerment through Cronbach’s alpha technique as used by Mahmud et al. (2012). The value of alpha (a) shows the internal consistency between variables taken in any model, or it shows the reliability of variables on each other. Its value is between 0 and 1 (Bland and Altman 1997). After estimating the scale/score of four aspects of women empowerment, i.e. selfesteem, role in decision-making, mobility and control over the resource, and verifying its internal reliability, using the Cronbach’s alpha method, four models were developed to investigate the factors influencing the above said aspects of women empowerment. SE ¼ b0 þ b1 X1 þ b2 X2 þ b3 X3 þ b4 X4 þ b5 X5 þ b6 X6 þ b7 X7 þ b8 X8 þ b9 X9 þ b10 X10 þ l ð1Þ RDM ¼ a0 þ a1 X1 þ a2 X2 þ a3 X3 þ a4 X4 þ a5 X5 þ a6 X6 þ a7 X7 þ a8 X8 þ a9 X9 þ a10 X10 þ e ð2Þ M ¼ c0 þ c1 X1 þ c2 X2 þ c3 X3 þ c4 X4 þ c5 X5 þ c6 X6 þ c7 X7 þ c8 X8 þ c9 X9 þ c10 X10 þu ð3Þ COR ¼ g0 þ g1 X1 þ g2 X2 þ g3 X3 þ g4 X4 þ g5 X5 þ g6 X6 þ g7 X7 þ g8 X8 þ g9 X9 þ g10 X10 þ m ð4Þ where SE = Score of women’s self-esteem, RDM = Score of women’s role in decision making; M = Score of mobility, COR = Score of control over resources; b, a, c and g are respective coefficients of the models. Likewise; l, e, u and m are respective error terms of the models; whereas X1 = Household head’s education, X2 = Family type, X3 = Number of children, X4 = Gender of Household head, X5 = Job status, X6 = Salary adequacy, X7 = Access to print media, X8 = Access to TV, X9 = Access to radio, X10 = Social media
2.3 Rural development model Rural Development Index (RDI) was estimated to capture the impact of development and distribution of different indicators like access to adequate food, access to electricity, access to mobile communication, access and usage of health facility and ease of access to higher education and access to agricultural markets. We used primary data; an index was constructed using Cronbach’s Alpha technique. The basis for construction of the RDI was taken from Michalek and Zarnekow (2012). Finally, the four dimensions of women empowerment were regressed over RDI, using Ordinary Least Square methods and found the impact of women empowerment on rural development (Mahmud et al. 2012). The final model to estimate the impact of Women Empowerment on Rural Development is:
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RD ¼ b0 þ b1 SE þ b2 RDM þ b3 M þ b4 COR þ l RD = Rural Development Score, SE = Score of women’s self-esteem, RDM = Score of women’s role in decision making, M = Score of mobility, COR = Score of control over resources.
2.4 Econometric model The OLS technique, using multiple Indices has been used for the analysis of the impact of women empowerment on rural development. The general form of the model is Y ¼ ai þ
n X
biXi þ l
i¼1
There are four main dimensions of women empowerment i.e. self-esteem, role in decision making, mobility and control over resources (Mahmud et al. 2012).
3 Results and discussions Frequency distribution of 120 married rural women is given in Table 1. Each dimension of women has been sub divided into few factors in order to see their response.
4 Factors affecting self-esteem From women’s opinion in different household decisions, the internal consistency (a) was found 0.86. The value of alpha (a) shows the internal consistency between variables taken in the model, or it shows the reliability of variables on each other. Its value is between 0 and 1 (Bland and Altman 1997). Among the factors, which were investigated for women’s empowerment, household head’s gender, job status and access to media specifically TV had shown the statistically significant relationship. These explanatory variables had been discussed in detail in Table 4 whereas self-esteem score was taken as dependent variable. In the case where household head was a woman, female members of that household would be more self-esteemed compared to those households with male heads. Moreover, if a woman was employed or working somewhere, she would be more self-esteemed as compared to the non-working and non-employed woman. Interestingly, the women who had easy access to television would be more self-esteemed as has been shown in Table 1. The factors such as family type, the number of children, salary adequacy, and access to radio, print media and social media networks had not shown a statistically significant relationship with women’s self-esteem. However, results showed that women who were managing independent family were more self-esteemed as compared to those who were living in the joint system. Also, the women who had more children were less self-esteemed than those with less number of children. Moreover, if the women had more access to print media, radio, and social media were more self-esteemed as compared to women who had less access to radio, print media and social media as shown in Table 1.
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I. A. Baig et al. Table 1 Women empowerment dimensions and their responses. Source: Calculation of responses from data Dimension
Response (frequency)
Self esteem
Yes
No
Does not know
Buying furniture and livestock
87
26
7
Spending family savings
76
30
14
Taking a loan
91
28
1
Visiting doctor for you
117
3
–
Her visit outside the home
90
30
–
Decision making
Opinion is important
Opinion is not important
Does not have input
Buying furniture and livestock
83
31
6
Spending family savings
69
37
14
Taking a loan
83
36
1
Visiting doctor for you
115
5
–
Her visit outside the home
80
39
1
Her visit to father’s home
102
18
–
Mobility
Went without permission
Took permission
Did not go
She wants to have input decision in
She has decision making power in
In the last year, she Visited friends outside the village
7
113
–
Visited hospital or clinic
38
80
2
Visited her father home
58
61
1
Visited her relatives
50
69
1
Visited her children school
14
9
97
Going for shopping
21
96
3
Going for outing
20
99
1
Control over resources
Yes
No
Not sure 5
She has money she can spend as she wishes The budget for furniture
74
41
Control over husband salary
58
42
20
Control over own salary
65
21
34
The budget for other things
91
27
2
Can sale her precious jewellery
21
90
9
Can spend the saved money
58
61
1
Giving loan to husband’s family/ relatives
38
78
4
Giving a loan to her family/relatives
40
80
–
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5 Factors affecting decision making The internal consistency (a) of the overall role of women in decision making score was 0.82 which was the aggregate of six different situations. Those situations have been discussed in detail in Table 2. The factors, which were investigated for women empowerment, only access to media specifically TV had shown the statistically significant relationship. In the case where women had more access to TV had more decision making power as compared to women who had less access to media specifically TV as shown in Table 2. Factors such as education, family type, the number of children, gender, job status, adequate salary, access to print media, access to radio and social media had shown insignificant results. Moreover, the women who were more qualified had more decision making power as compared to women who were less qualified. Also, the women whose household heads were women had more decision making power as compared to those women who were not household heads of their families. Notably, the women who were managing independent families had less decision making power as compared to those who were living in joint families. Also, the women who had more children had less decision making power as compared to women who had less number of children. Also, the employed women had more decision making power as compared to non-working women.
Table 2 Description of independent variables used in models Variables
Description
Mean
SD
Household head’s education
Number of schooling years
2.142
4.4670
Family type
Frequency (%)
Joint family = 0
45
Independent = 1
55
No. of children
Number
Gender of household head
Male = 0
9
Female = 1
5.8
Job status Salary adequacy Access to print
Access to radio
Access to social media
2.3371
Unemployed = 0
45.8
Employed/working woman = 1
54.2
Inadequate = 0
60.9
Adequate = 1
39.1
If the female members of the household do not have adequate access to print media = 0
92.5
If they have adequate access = 1 Access to TV
3.092
7.5
If the female members of the household do not have adequate access to TV = 0
64.2
If they have adequate access = 1
35.8
If the female members of the household do not have adequate access to radio = 0
75.8
If they have adequate access = 1
24.2
If the female members of the household do not have adequate access to social media = 0
75.8
If they have accees to it = 1
24.2
Number of observation = 120
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Notably, the women who had more access to print and social media had less decision making power as compared to women who had less access to print and social media. However, the women who had more access to radio had more decision making power as compared to women who had less access to media specifically radio as shown in Table 3.
6 Factors affecting mobility of women The internal consistency of different factors of mobility score was 0.79. Among the factors, which were investigated for women empowerment, education and household’s head gender had shown the statistically significant relationship. In the case, where women were more qualified were found more mobile as compared to women who were less qualified. Table 3 Regression results of four dimensions of women empowerment Factors
Education Family type No. of children
Model 1 Self esteem score
Model 2 Decision making score
Model 3 Mobility score
Model 4 Control over resources score
0.0037
0.0184
0.0427
0.0139
(0.0178)
(0.0168)
(0.0153)
(0.0157) 0.2072
0.1304
-0.0816
-0.0741
(0.1498)
(0.1411)
(0.1282)
(0.1316)
-0.0084
-0.0032
0.0065
-0.0177
(0.0304)
(0.0287)
(0.0261)
(0.0267)
Gender of house hold head
0.6382
0.3013
0.5357
0.5886
(0.2998)
(0.2823)
(0.2566)
(0.2637)
Job status
0.5272
0.2393
-0.0559
0.4979
Salary adequate
(0.1814)
(0.1709)
(0.1553)
(0.1593)
-0.0182
0.2418
0.1832
-0.0132
(0.1953)
(0.1839)
(0.1672)
(0.1715) -0.0540
Access to media Print TV Radio Social media Constant Adj R2
0.2230
-0.2705
-0.1894
(0.3013)
(0.2838)
(0.2579)
(0.2648)
0.5220
0.3556
-0.0002
0.5382
(0.1751)
(0.1649)
(0.1499)
(0.1538)
0.1198
0.1314
0.1686
0.1142
(0.1663)
(0.1567)
(0.1424)
(0.1461) 0.0988
0.1731
-0.2069
-0.1942
(0.3231)
(0.3043)
(0.2766)
(0.2839)
-0.7457
-0.2295
-0.0523
-0.8198
(0.2644)
(0.2489)
(0.2263)
(0.2323)
0.13
0.06
0.07
0.17
Significance level is shown in parentheses
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Moreover, the women who were household heads had more freedom to move as compared to women whose household heads were men. Factors such as family type, the number of children, job status, adequate salary, access to print media, access to radio and social media had shown insignificant results in most of the cases. Moreover, the women who were living in independent families were less mobile as compared to women who were living in joint families. In the case, women who had more number of children were found more mobile as compared to women who had less number of children. Interestingly, working women were less mobile as compared to nonworking women. Moreover, the women who had an adequate salary were more mobile as compared to women who had a less adequate salary. Notably, women who had more access to print media, TV and social media were less mobile as compared to women who had less access to print media, TV and social media. Interestingly women who had more access to media specifically radio were more mobile as compared to women who had less access to media specifically radio as shown in Table 3.
7 Factors affecting control over resources The internal consistency (a) of the factors of control over resources score was 0.87. Among the factors, which were investigated for women empowerment, household head’s gender, job status and access to media specifically TV had shown statistically significant results. In the case where women were household heads, she had more control over resources as compared to women whose household heads were males. Moreover, working women had more control over resources as compared to non-working women. Also, the women who had more access to media specifically TV had more control over resources as compared to women who had less access to TV as shown in Table 3. Factors such as education, family type, the number of children, adequate salary, access to print media, media access to radio and social media were found statistically insignificant. Moreover, the women who were more qualified had more control over resources as compared to less qualified women. Also, the women who had been living independently with their families had more control over resources as compared to women who were living in joint families. Notably, the women who had more number of children had less control over resources as compared to women who had less number of children. Moreover, the women having an adequate salary had less control over resources as compared to women having a less adequate salary. Notably, women having more access to print, electronic and social media were less mobile (low mobility) as compared to women having less access to print, social and electronic media. Interestingly, women having more access to radio and social media had more control over resources as compared to women having less access to radio and social media as shown in Table 3.
8 Explaining women empowerment over rural development The final model showed that self-esteem score, women decision making power score and mobility score had a statistically significant contribution to rural development score in the present study. Moreover, women having more self-esteem had more positive impact on rural development as compared to women who had less self-esteem. Also, women who had more decision making power had more impact on rural development as compared to
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women who had less decision making power. It was also revealed that women having greater mobility had more impact on rural development as compared to women who were less mobile as shown in Table 4. The only dimension i.e. control over resources score had shown a statistically insignificant relation with rural development score. The women having more control over resources had less impact on rural development as compared to women having less control over resources as shown in Table 4.
9 Conclusion In Pakistan, Government is making considerable efforts to empower the women in the country through providing them adequate education and ensuring their participation in decision making process, i.e. increased number of female members in local, provincial and national assemblies. To validate these efforts and understand the process of empowerment more deeply, this study investigated the factors of empowerment and its onward effect on the rural development. The situation showed that four dimensions of women empowerment (i.e. self-esteem, decision-making power, mobility and control over resources) were influenced by some socio-economic factors with a certain variation in response from one dimension to the other. Gender of household head (i.e. if female), job status (i.e. if a woman is employed) and access to media (TV) positively and significantly influenced the self-esteem of the women. Likewise, only one factor, access to media (TV), significantly affected the decision making dimension. However, the dimension of mobility was significantly influenced by education status and gender of household head. The fourth dimension ‘control over resources’ was affected significantly by education, job status and access to media (TV). Eventually, the effect of dimensions of women empowerment on rural development was investigated. The findings revealed that self-esteem, mobility, and decision-making positively influenced the process of rural development. However, the effect of the dimension ‘control over resources’ did not show statistically significant influence on the rural development. Overall, it was observed that socio-economic factors play a vital role strengthening women’s empowerment, thereby improving the process of rural development.
Table 4 Regression results of women empowerment score on rural development score
Factors
Coefficient (S.E)
SE score
0.2446 (0.1186)
DM score
0.2701 (0.1095)
Mobility score
0.2335 (0.0974)
COR score
-0.559 (0.1303)
Constant
-7.4313
Adj R2
0.17
(0.6332) Significance level is shown in parentheses
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10 Policy implications and recommendations Based on the findings, the study suggested some key policy instruments improve the dimensions of women empowerment conducive to improve the process of rural development. Access to media particularly TV influences self-esteem, mobility and control over resources. Therefore, improved access to TV in rural areas with special emphasis on women capacity building will create awareness among the women about their basic rights. Therefore, electronic media could play a very important role in improving the socioeconomic status of women by building their capacity through the positive and constructive role. For instance, positive and productive programmes on TV, i.e. dramas with the productive message, talk shows on women rights and education hours, may be a handy tool to empower the women through improving the awareness about the dimensions of selfesteem, mobility, and control over resources. Providing job or working opportunities to women also influence the dimensions of selfesteem and control over resources positively. In this regard, government may introduce microfinance schemes and household level training programmes for women to start their small businesses. Training workshops regarding the use of finance and establishing the small enterprises will increase the chance of effective use of credit. In addition, the government may increase the number of reserved seats for women in each department and sector of the economy. Adequate education of women was also found imparting significant and positive impact on the dimension of decision making. The results of studies were supported by Jali et al. (2017) whom conducted a study on the rural women in Punjab, Pakistan. Improving the situation of existing women educational institutions, and the establishment of new girls schools in villages, and colleges and universities in nearby towns may have a greater impact on women’s education. The poorest rural female students may also be offered free books and food-at-school stipends. In addition, awareness among the rural community about women education may also play an effective role because most of the parents do not prefer to send their girls to school due mainly to their personal choices or cultural constraints. Such parents may be informally or formally be convinced about the role of women education not only for their empowerment but also the family livelihood. Though this study is an academic research, however findings are expected to help to understand the issue of women empowerment. Also, it is hoped that policy instruments suggested by this study will help to improve the women empowerment, thereby enhancing the chances of rural development not only in the study area but in the whole country also.
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