Studies On Disparities In Socio-Economic Status And Livelihood Security Of Rural Women

Any type of development cannot help women until or unless their economic status and livelihood security have improved in urban as well as in rural settings. Many studies have pinpointed the issues relating to women, but not much attention have been paid to examine their economic status and livelihood security. A woman is said to be economically empowered when she gains power as a result of increased access to economic resources. The means of achieving economic empowerment are : access to micro finance, increase in income, ability to make decisions regarding the utilization of credit, etc. Economic establishment is the individual aspect of women development. The economic empowerment means greater access to financial resource inside and outside the households, reducing vulnerability of poor women to crisis situation like famine, flood, riots, death and accidents in the family and significant increase in income of rural women. Economic security gives rural women the power to retain income and use it at her discretion. Hence, the present study aims to explore to find out the major factors those promoting women’s socio-economic development in true sense and simultaneously to find out the major social constraints those Indian women have to face to empower and develop themselves from the long time span. This study has focused on several indicators of women’s socio-economic development. Though there are a large number of studies related to socio-economic development of women but major promoting and reducing factors those responsible for women’s elevation in actual sense have not received much attention so far. Hence, this study assumes great importance Key words: Gender Equality, Gender Disparity, Socio-Economic Development, Ashtapath, Social -Constraints, Livelihood Security, Discrimination, Patriarchy