ACHIEVEMENT OF LIVELIHOOD ASPIRATIONS OF TRIBAL WOMEN OF NORTHERN BANGLADESH BY PARTICIPATION IN AGRICULTURAL ACTIVITIES

Abstract

The study aimed at exploring the achievement of livelihood aspiration of tribal women and finding out the relationships between some of the selected characteristics of the tribal women and their achievement of livelihood aspiration. Data were collected by using a pre-tested interview schedule from the tribal women of two unions namely Chandipur, Mostafapur of Parbatipur upazila of Dinajpur district. Data were collected from randomly selected 110 respondents from the population of 250 tribal women by using simple random sampling method from 27 October to 15 November, 2016. The selected ten (10) characteristics of the tribal women such as age, educational qualification, family size, farm size, annual income, training experience, extension media contact, organizational participation, agricultural knowledge and attitude towards participation in agricultural activities were considered as the selected characteristics where achievement of livelihood aspirations of the tribal women constituted the focus issue. Achievement of livelihood aspirations of the tribal women was measured by 4-point rating scale. It was found that the observed score of achievement of livelihood aspirations of the participating tribal women ranged from 18 to 60 in score while the possible range was 0.0 to 75. The mean achievement of livelihood aspirations score was 37.0 with a standard deviation of 8.73. Among the farmers, 86.4 percent belonged to medium status of achievement of livelihood aspirations status while 7.3 percent of them had high status of achievement of livelihood aspirations and 6.4 percent had low status of livelihood aspirations. The variation regarding different achievement of livelihood aspirations was minimum, the highest status of achievement of livelihood aspirations was observed in case of achievement of household food security and it was the lowest in case of achievement of access to market opportunity. Four (4) out of ten (10) selected characteristics of the tribal women such as farm size, extension media contact, agricultural knowledge and attitude towards agricultural activities had significant positive relationships with their achievement of livelihood aspiration. Rests of the characteristics such as age, educational qualification, family size, annual income, training experience, and organizational participation had no significant relationship with their achievement of livelihood aspiration. It was found that the achievement of livelihood aspiration was mostly hindered due to lack of necessary agricultural land followed by lack of enough capital for agricultural activities and unavailability of sufficient fertilizers. To overcome the problems tribal women suggested solutions to supply sufficient cultivable land for cultivation followed by support from Sub-Assistant Agricultural Officer and provide loan.