EMPOWERMENT OF RURAL WOMEN THROUGH PARTICIPATION IN TRANSFORMED AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM IN NORTHERN BANGLADESH

Abstract

The study aimed at exploring the empowerment of rural women through participation in transformed agricultural system, it also determine some selected characteristics of women farmers and find out the relationships between some of the selected characteristics of the women farmers and their empowerment. Data were collected by using a pre-tested interview schedule from the rural women of sadar upazilas of Thakurgaon and Dinajpur district. Data were collected from randomly selected 110 respondents of the total 1098 rural women participate in transformed agricultural system by using simple random sampling method from 23 September to 29 October, 2016. The selected nine (9) characteristics of the rural women such as age, education, family size, farm size, annual income, training experience, extension media contact, organizational participation and agricultural knowledge were considered as the independent variables where empowerment of rural women constituted the dependent variable. Empowerment of rural women was measured by 4 point rating scale using five dimensions of empowerment. It was found that the observed score of empowerment of the rural women ranged from 21 to 64 in score while the possible range was 0 to 78. The mean empowerment score was 46.02 with a standard deviation of 9.02. Among the rural women, 71.8 percent belonged to medium status of empowerment while 21.8 percent of them had high status of empowerment and 6.4 percent had low status of empowerment. Five (5) out of nine (9) selected characteristics of rural women such as education, farm size, annual income, training experience and agricultural knowledge had positive significant relationships with their empowerment. Rests of the characteristics age, family size, extension media contact and organizational participation had no significant relationship with their empowerment.