Household Decision Making Process of Rural Women in Bangladesh

Abstract

Most of the women in Bangladesh are not empowered to participate in social, economical, and political decision-making process of the country, which is one of the important elements of women empowerment. Within this context the study is designed mainly to identify the areas of participation of women in household decision making and contributing factors of their participation level as well. The specific objectives of the study are to: (a) identify the area of women participation in household decision making (b) identify the significant factors influencing the participation of rural women in decision making processes, (c) measure the degree of participation of women in different areas of household decisions. Raichow village of Comilla Sadar Upazila was purposively selected as the sample for the study. Selected respondents (100) were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. It was found that women participation in joint decision is comparatively higher (above 50%) in house making/repair, family planning, education of son/daughter, purchase of household goods, treatment of family members and membership in local institutions. On the contrary, the percentage of women's alone decision in presence of household head was rarely observed (highest in family planning only 15.5%). It has been also observed that in the absence of household head/husband, women's responsibility in the family increased. In the Raichow village, most of the women took household related decisions in absence of household head/husband. The correlation coefficient is significant between women decision level and their age (0.257; α = 0.05) and education (0.206; α = 0.10); but not significant relationship was found between women decision level and their income. That means women's age and education is positively related to their decision making level.