Developing Shrimp Industry And Its Impact On Changing Gender Role And Empowerment Of Coastal Communities In Bangladesh

With the development of Shrimp industry, different catagories of stakeholders of coastal communitities are involved in production, procesing and marketing of shrimp. The present study made an attempt to determine the gender role and empowerment of stakehoders involved in shrimp industry. Considering the different activities performed and the section of communities people (stakeholder) engaged in shrimp industry was divided into I 1 sub-sectors. Data were collected from 220 stakeholders including both men and women involved in different sectors of shrimp industry. The men and women were involved in shrimp farm activities as shrimp seed collectors, shrimp farm labourers and workers in procesing plant and depot. Moreover, male participation and involvement in different works of shrimp industry are dominant compared to women. In addition, men earned more compared to women where both men and women labourers were employed. On the other hand, women participation and involvement were gretear both in reproductive activities and homebased income generating activities. Considering all the activities of shrimp farm, per day time budget for women was sufficicently higher (15.45 hours) compared to men stakeholders (11.30 hours). Time allocation for income generating activities has also being incresed for women stakeholders after development of shrimp industry. Again, women stakeholders participated in activities of decision making process of family affairs and management of household assets indicating women empowerment.