A STUDY ON ERADICATION OF POVERTY THROUGH WOMEN EMPOWERMENT : AN EMPIRICAL STUDY IN DISTRICT

SYNOPSIS

Introduction

India is enriched with human power resources which can be enlightened and empowered through optimum utilization of education. Education is an important tool for reducing inequalities and poverty. It has a special quality, which gives benefits to the society as a whole. It ensures equitable economic growth. Due to Globalization, knowledge acquired through proper education becomes vital for meeting out international standards. The development of human capabilities and skill depends to a greater extent on quality education. The expenditure on education gives benefits to a Nation for stable economic growth, out space in technology and stability in economy. The technology and the human capital (value of human resources is referred as human capital) are the basic two components of knowledge, which are essential for a competitive economy. Higher education provides out space in technology and development of skills in human resources. Selection of a career or occupation of lifelong may be influenced by several factors such as social characteristics, family income, parental education and occupation, personal interest abilities and higher education.

Promoting gender equality which is one of the main keys of achieving Millennium Development Goals. All the keys of MDGs like eradication of poverty, universalisation of primary education, promotion of gender equality, reduction of child mortality, improvement of maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability and, to develop a global partnership for development are automatically realized when the prime priority is given to the third MDG called Promoting Gender Equality. What are the ways of promoting gender equality and empower

1 women? The answer is putting resources in to poor women’s hands while promoting gender equality in the household and in society and this results in large development pay offs. Expanding women’s opportunities in public works, agriculture, finance, and other sectors accelerates economic growth and helps to mitigate the effects of current and future financial crisis. Gender equality is a moral imperative which is about fairness and equity, and includes many political, social and cultural dimensions. It is true that many countries around the world have made significant progress towards gender equality in education, employment and entrepreneurship in recent decades.

Need for the Study

India is a country characterized by diversity, contrasts and contradictions. According to Human Development Index (HDI) assigned by the United Nations Development Programme, India assumes extremely low position in terms of human development, though assumes a high position as an exporter of software in the world. Half of the population of India constitutes women. About 300 million Indians are not able to even meet their basic subsistence needs. Development policies and programs framed are not viewing women as an integral part to the economic development of the nation. Indian women still have a low level of representation in the parliament of the Country and also assemblies in various states. In traditional societies, women empowerment cannot happen overnight. It takes decades to produce constructive results. Despite the introduction of various schemes for empowering the women, the improvement in empowerment of women is not up to the expected level. Gender barriers still continue particularly in rural areas though the saying goes on “women are equal to men”. Due to the presence of socio-economic constraints in rural areas, the potential of women have not been fully utilized and they have been further pushed back into the social hierarchy. Women remained long neglected and the most deprived segment of the society, despite constitution guarantees equal rights and privileges for both men and women for making social returns. In labor markets, women earn less than the

2 earnings of male partners.1 The working women in India are facing more challenges than their counter parts in other parts of the world. It is due to management of three areas viz., house, child and office. Work life balancing technique and empowerment in taking household decisions could improve the working conditions of working group of women and reduce the stress. Hence, the present study made an attempt to study the eradication of poverty through women empowerment in Kollam District.

Statement of the Problem

Empowerment of women has emerged as an important issue in our society. Empowering women is a life cycle process and therefore, policies must be framed at every stage to suit the particular needs of the women. The contribution of women to the economic and social development could be possible only when women are empowered at every stage of life cycle.2 In the women empowerment process, the self help group (SHG) acts only as a window for development of rural women folk by usage of micro finance and interaction. The need of the day is to impart the knowledge of women by Higher education and training. Further creating awareness programmes regarding accessibility to loans, procedures of funding agencies for getting certification, improving the motivational skills and educating the importance of support from family and other organizations are the need of the hour. Since the empowerment involves competency development, effort is to be made to create a culture of continuous learning. The continuous learning goes beyond training and development programmes. The inbuilt idea that women are capable of doing less work than men and are less efficient than men amounts to an injustice of paying low salary and wages to the female workers. The gender barrier at the entry level of work also persists that hampers the growth of the working women. Focus is to be given on empowering women and girls,

1 Article ‘The role of micro finance in the empowerment of poor and general women folk’ by S.Gangadevi, Journal NCBF-2012 of Jamal Institute of Management Studies, Trichy.

2 Articles on ‘Innovative programmes for the empowerment of women workers in India’ by N.Murugeswari, - Journal Innovate Business & Technology strategies for developing countries, MasilamaniPathipagam, Chennai. 3 because they are capable of bringing drastic changes in the society. Efforts have still to be taken by all in making strategic approach to the empowerment of women. Though the women in rural areas are capable of hard working and motivated, they are not aware of the different development programmes and schemes announced by the Government and private organizations. The lack of education becomes the obstacle in getting empowerment. It becomes constitutional responsibility to give women the equal rights and opportunities as available to men. Empowering women must be a united approach which involves attention of all stakeholders. The rural women entrepreneurs are finding it difficult in marketing their products because of poor educational background. Though the women are having basic knowledge and understanding, they are not able to enter into business contracts, avail of loan facilities and incentive schemes, taxation procedures etc. due to lack of education and training. In order to address the above issues, a effort has been taken by the researcher to study the eradication of poverty through women empowerment in Kollam District.

Objectives of the Study

The objectives of the present study are:

i. To exhibit the profile of the respondents in Kollam district.

ii. To identify the various dimensions of empowerments among the respondents.

iii. To analyse the association between the profile of the respondents and various dimensions of empowerment.

iv. To evaluate the eradication of poverty through women empowerment.

v. To offer suggestions for enhancing the eradication of poverty through women empowerment based on the findings of the study.

Hypotheses

4 H1: Social empowerment has a significant and positive effect on overall empowerment of women.

H2: Economical empowerment has a significant and positive effect on overall empowerment of women.

H3: Political empowerment has a significant and positive effect on overall empowerment of women.

H4: Educational empowerment has a significant and positive effect on overall empowerment of women.

H5: Psychological empowerment has a significant and positive effect on overall empowerment of women.

H6: Overall empowerment has a significant and positive effect on poverty eradication of women empowerment. Period of the study

The period of the study ranges from June 2016 to June 2019.

Research Methodology

Research methodology is a scientific and systematic way to solve research problems. The research methodology deals with research methods and taken into consideration the logic behind the methods. In total, the research methodology of the study includes research design, sampling framework, data collection, framework of analysis and limitations.

Research Design of the Study

Research design is the conceptual structure within which the research is conducted. It is a blue print for the collection, management and analysis of the data. The research design in the present study is descriptive in nature since it describes the phenomena of eradication of poverty through empowerment in Kollam District. Apart from this, the present study has its own objectives and pre-determined methodology. It is purely descriptive in nature.

Profile of the study area

5 Kollam district is one of 14 districts of the state of , India. The district has a cross-section of Kerala’s natural attributes; it is endowed with a long coastline, a major Laccadive Sea seaport and an inland lake (). The district has many waterbodies. is one among them, and the east side land of river is East Kallada and the west side land is . Kallada Boat race is one among the famous festival events of district. Even though it is a competition between two land sides of the river, many boat clubs from various places even beyond the district participate in the event. Kollam is the capital of Kerala's cashew industry. Plains, mountains, lakes, lagoons and backwaters, forests, farmland and rivers make up the topography of the district. The area had trading relationships with Phoenicia and Ancient Rome.

Sampling Procedure of the Study

The scope of the study is confined to Kollam District. There are 11 blocks in Kollam District. The researcher has chosen five blocks in Kollam District namely Anchal, Chadayamangalam, Chavara, Chittumala and Ithikkara selected for this study. There are 630 respondents are taken as a sample for the present study. One Thousand questionnaires were distributed among the five blocks in Kollam District as shown in the table 1.

Table 1

Distribution of Sampling

Number of Number of Filled Name of the Blocks in Sl.No. Questionnaire Questionnaires Kollam District distributed Received 1. Anchal 200 131 2. Chadayamangalam 200 126 3. Chavara 200 119 4. Chittumala 200 142 5. Ithikkara 200 112 Total 1000 630

6 The total number of questionnaires distributed in the self-administered survey was 1000 sets. Simple random sampling method is applied in this research for selecting the sample. A form of non-probability sampling in which decisions concerning the individuals to be included in the sample are taken by the researcher, based upon a variety of criteria which may include specialist knowledge of the research issue, capacity and willingness to participate in the research. Some types of research design necessitate researchers taking a decision about the individual participants who would be most likely to contribute appropriate data, both in terms of relevance and depth. For example, in life history research, some potential participants may be willing to be interviewed, but may not be able to provide sufficient data. Researchers may have to select the samples carefully. Based on the collected questionnaires, 224 sets of questionnaire were incomplete and 146 sets of questionnaires were not returned. Assumption was made that the respondents were either reluctant to collaborate or did not want to answer the questionnaire seriously. As a result, only 630 valid sets of questionnaires (63 percent) were available and then used for further analysis using SPSS software version 21. The data analysis methods carried out for this research was descriptive analysis, scale measurement analysis and inferential analysis.

Sources of Data

The present study is completely based on the primary data. The secondary data collected from the books, journals, magazines and websites were used to form the theoretical framework of the study and the review of literature. The primary data was collected personally with the help of structured questionnaire.

Construct Development of the Study

Since the present study is mainly based on primary data, a questionnaire was prepared which consists of three parts. The first part covers the profile of the respondents which includes all the socio, economic, psychological profile of the respondents. The second part of the interview schedule includes the

7 education and reasons for joining the job, whereas the third part of the schedule consists of the status of the respondents. The empowerment variables related to social, economic, political, educational and psychological empowerment have been drawn from previous studies, and from the views of academic experts. A pre-test was conducted in the study area to finalise the data collection in each empowerment. Also the variables in all empowerment satisfy the validity (Cronbach alpha varies from 0.7374 to 0.8917), the selected variables had been included for the present study. Certain additions, deletions and modifications had been carried out as per the instructions of the academic experts. The final draft of the schedule had been prepared for the data collection.

Framework of Analysis

The analysis of data in a research plays a pivotal role in the sense that it interprets, justifies and proves the hypothesis and the proposals. The judicious blend of analytical tools used has its own impact on the findings of the research, thereby making it highly objective and scientific. In this context, the tools for analysis have been rightly chosen as follows.

i. Reliability Analysis

ii. Descriptive Analysis

iii. Chi Square Test

iv. Correlation Coefficient

v. T-Test

vi. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)

Limitations of the Study

The present study is subjected with the following limitations: i. The present study is confined to Kollam District only. In Kollam District five blocks were selected. They are Anchal, Chadayamangalam, Chavara, Chittumala and Ithikkara.

8 ii. The answers given by the respondents towards eradication of poverty through women empowerment may be affected by the personal value judgment. iii. The aspects of eradication of poverty through women empowerment have been measured with the help of the variables drawn from previous studies. iv. The multiple regression analysis had been applied to examine the impact of independent variables on dependent variable with an assumption of linear relationship between them. v. All the descriptive variables are measured by likert five points scale.

Chapter Plan

The present study is classified into five chapters for neat and clear presentation.

The first chapter includes the introduction, need for the study, statement of the problem, objectives of the study, hypotheses of the study, operational definitions, period of the study, research methodology, sampling procedure, framework of analysis, limitations of the study and chapter plan.

The second chapter deals with the review of relevant literature.

The third chapter exhibits a conceptual framework of the study.

The fourth chapter deals with the analysis of data and the empowerment gained in terms of social, economic, political, educational and psychological aspects of the respondents. Further, the association between the profile of the respondents and their empowerments are also examined.

The fifth chapter summarizes the findings of the study, suggestions, conclusion and scope for future research.

9