OUTLINE OF PROPOSED RESEARCH

“ The study of measures taken for women empowerment

in Thane District”

Submitted To:

SWAMI RAMANAND TEERTH MARATHWADA UNIVERSITY,

NANDED

FOR REGISTRATION OF THE DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN COMMERCE

Under the guidance of

DR B.S Gitte
K.K.M COLLEGE MANVAT

Submitted By:
MS Roma p Bhagtiani
January 2015
Title

Women are an emerging economic force that policymakers cannot afford to ignore. It has
implications of this for businesswomen throughout the world. Women‘s business association‘s
can best channel this potential and maximize it to improve the status of women in the world
economy. The world‘s modern economy, and in fact democracy, depends on the participation of
both sexes. It would be ideal to envision as normal a global international order based on
democracy, free enterprise, and international law. Since no such system has ever existed, this
system looks utopian, if not naive. However, governments and institutions promoting
democratic values of women’s and empowering them with help of various programs and policies
to strengthen women’s.

The discrimination of women from womb to tomb is well known. Existence of this situation
shows the process of socio-economic development of the country .It also invites various unrest-
ness in their society because their current interactions with the rest of the world cannot be
avoided. It is clearly meant that the underprivileged situation of women is a main hurdle in the
way of development. Growing awareness towards it is leading countries to take quick and
effective actions to develop women in all perspectives of the socio economic field.

Empowerment of women will not be achieved unless the initiatives to educate women are taken
and supported by the government with the help of people’s participation.

INTRODUCTION

Empowerment literally means “enable or authorize”. When we talk of empowerment of women,

it entails political, social, economic and cultural aspects. Translating this into practical lives
means conditions wherein women are able to participate and have access and control of
resources and opportunities in all these areas of life. An idealistic approach is to make laws that
promote gender equality, setup institutions to implement these laws and most important, spread
awareness and education about them so that the just and fair conditions are created for all.

Empowerment of women would necessarily mean redefining the notions of feminity and
masculinity as well as changing man-woman relationship. This is something more and more
women are now talking about. Contrary to the rumours which are spread, feminists are not
against men. They are against patriarchy as a system, against aggressive masculinity. They want
men who are gentle and caring. The new models of good men for women are not muscular,
aggressive and supermen but men like Mahatma Gandhi, Jesus Christ, Gurn Nanak, Buddha.
They want husbands who can not only act as fathers but also as mothers.

Empowerment of women is not a one way process—it is not the adult educators and activists
who can go and empower others. It is a two way process in which women empower and get
empowered. This is an ongoing journey for all the women. No one can become empowered for
good and then become an expert in empowering others. As women account for more than half of
the world’s illiterate population, achieving literacy could be one of the first steps for improving
women to participate more in society and free themselves from economic exploitation and
oppression. The empowerment of women and the improvement of their status, particularly in
respect of education, health and economic opportunity is a highly important end in itself. In
addition, this also enhances their decision-making capacity in vital areas, especially in the areas
of reproduction. Education is one of the most important means of empowering women and of
giving them knowledge, skills and self confidence necessary, to be full partners in the
development process

Empowerment of women entails struggle; it entails learning to deal with the forces of
oppression; it entails having a vision of a new society and it also entails conscious and deliberate
interventions and efforts to enhance the quality of life. Collective strength is necessary for
building solidarity and support among workers to achieve empowerment. On the one hand, a
struggle against existing forces of oppression has to be undertaken and on the other, support for
women workers has to be generated through collective strength. In order to fight against the
socially constructed gender biases, women have to swim against the stream that requires more
strength. Such a strength comes from the process of empowerment. Some of the empowerment
mechanisms could be identified as follows—

 Literacy and higher education;

 Better health care for herself and her children;
 Higher age at marriage;
 Greater work participation in modernized sector;
 Necessary financial and service support for self-employment;
 Opportunities for higher positions of power;
 Complete knowledge of her rights; and above all
 Self-reliance, self-respect and dignity of being a woman.

LITERATURE REVIEW

 The World Population Report 1994 states very clearly that, “Empowering women means
extending choices, choice about if and when to get married, choice about education,
employment, opportunities, controlling the social and physical environment, choice about
if and when to get pregnant and ultimately about family size. Empowerment requires that
husbands, partners, family members, and communities help to promote a healthy
environment too from violences or abuse, in which women are free to use community
services on the basis of equality.” The parameters of empowerment are; Building a
positive self-image and self-confidence, developing ability to think critically, building up
group cohesion and fostering decision-making and action, ensuring equal participation in
the process of bringing about social change, encouraging group action in order to bring
about change in the society and providing the economic independence.

 Muraleedharan‘s (2000) study says that in most development strategies participation and
empowerment of women have emerged as an important goal. The primary objective of
empowerment of women is to create more equitable and participatory structures in which
women can gain control over their lives. Generally, women‘s empowerment has been
 based on grass root initiatives that are designed to meet the special needs and interest of
local women themselves. Empowerment of woman is a process, a continuum of several
interrelated and mutually reinforcing components.

 Malathy Ramanathan (2004) narrates the story of Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Pappad
model, an attempt to make women economically self-reliant, thus paving the way for
their concurrent empowerment in the other facets of their lives. The significant factor
here is that Lijjat provides a beacon of light to the lower class women in India,
irrespective of their caste, religion or region, a path towards better future. The capacity to
earn one‘s livelihood and the resultant self-confidence was necessarily the first step in the
ladder to empowerment.

 Indira M (2005) carries out a comparative analysis of two programmes in the district of
Mysore (Karnataka) which differ according to their strategy and style of functioning.
Both are state-led initiatives with the objective of women's empowerment: Mahila
Samakhya (MS) is a quasi-central government programme and Shri Shakthi (SS) has
been initiated by the DWCDRA (Department of Women and Child Development in Rural
Areas). Whereas MS sees the goal of social SHGs being to create awareness and space
for women and empowerment through transformation, SS addresses only the economic
needs of the women by creating savings and credit groups. Her study shows that the
participation of women in local government organizations helps to engender governance
at the grassroots level (which is understood as a positive social externality). The results
are systematically more positive in the case of the Mahila Samakhya program. She also
points out several negative externalities: tension between men and women at the
household and community level, limited reduction of the dependence on moneylenders,
interference by political parties to influence the Anganwadi teachers in the Shri Shakthi
program.

Lastly, she recommends the combination of awareness raising and microcredit because
―enlightened self-interest" makes members come together and actively participate if
microcredit is part of the empowerment program.
  Moghadam, 1990; “The global issue of empowerment of women is closely related to
gender inequality. In fact, cultural concepts of feminine and masculine, and the ideology
of gender, has meant that throughout the world, women continue to occupy
disadvantaged positions in production, and are assumed to be primarily responsible for
reproduction (biologically, but also in terms of socialization). Not only do men and
women allocated labour and received differently; they also consumed, utilized, and
received resources, goods and services quite distinctly.”

SIGNIFICANCE AND STATEMENT OF STUDY

Empowerment of women as a goal of development projects and programs has gained wider
acceptance since 1990s.It is not a simple linear process. It has long been argued by various UN
agencies that the critical determinant of women’s socio-economic status is education, and that
education is the key to achieving social development by improving the well being of the girls and
women and thus promoting gender equity. The experience of numerous programs in the
government and the NGO sector shows that it is indeed possible. Empowerment of women was
one of the nine primary objectives of the Ninth Plan (1997-2002) and every effort was made to
create an enabling empowerment where women could freely exercise their rights within and
outside their home as equal Partner with men.

The gender roles can differentiate the position of women inferior as seen in all the countries. But
the degree of subordination very according to the development, on the one hand and the
ownership of means of productivity, on the other, the dissemination against women is more
pronounced in the third world countries in view of the prevalence of poverty.

The expansion of the market economy and industrialization and globalization brought increased
inequalities, resulting in lose of livelihoods, erosion of natural resources and with it decreased
women’s access to water, fuel, fodder and traditional survival resources. It also brought new
forms of exploitation-displacement, tourism, sex trade and retrenchment to mention a few.
Women are being pushed into less productive sectors. Increased pressure on rural resources
accelerated migration to urban areas in search of livelihood. People from backward regions,
tribal communities, disadvantaged castes and the displaced communities were being pushed
against the wall. Women in such countries shouldered the brunt and this phenomenon was
labelled “feminization of poverty.”

Women’s health is an important component of women’s empowerment. However the

accumulated research evidences show that the achievement levels in providing better health care
and safe motherhood for women, especially for rural women, are not at expected levels. In India,
the highest number of deaths in the age group of 16 to 25 is recorded among women.

Work participation empowers women. However the condition of women in India is more
miserable than the rest of the world in almost every field of social life. They are paid half of
three-quarters of the money while their male counterparts earn for the same job. India is
predominantly agricultural country. Women do more than half of the total agricultural work. But
their work is not valued. On an average a woman works 15 to 16 hours a day unpaid at home and
underpaid outside.

Among strategies for women empowerment, Government policies such as 73 and 74th
amendment of Indian Constitution, Reservation policies, concessions, social legislation and
enactment of certain acts were found be very important. However, the effect of such strategies
failed to reach the target due to various bureaucratic and systemic failures.

The identified gaps from the earlier studies reveal that failure of main stream financial
institutions / agencies to serve the poor has been well documented. Formal finance considers the
poor to risky, and the small loan they demand too expensive to administer, stringent collectable
requirements exclude a large segment of the poor population especially the rural poor women.
On the part of the poor women, bank lending procedures are regarded as to cumbersome, time-
consuming, transaction cost is high and credit services are ill-adopted to the native and capital
needs of their micro economic activities. For the above reasons, there is need for the study about
the strategy of Self Help Groups (SHGs) and how did micro credit help the rural poor women to
come out from the clutches of debt trap and achieving empowerment.
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1. To study the concept of women empowerment vis-à-vis and various policies related to
women empowerment.
2. To review the government policies about ―women empowerment.
3. To study the efforts taken by corporate for – women empowerment.
4. The role of Non Government Organisation (NGO) towards Women empowerment.

HYPOTHESES:

Following hypotheses statements are proposed for the above study.

1. Government policies do not provides benefits for women empowerment.

2. Government policies provide benefits for women empowerment.
3. Private sector corporate institutes are putting more efforts for women empowerment.
4. Public sector corporate institutes are putting more efforts for women empowerment.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A research philosophy is a belief about the way in which data about a phenomenon should be
gathered, analyzed and used. The term epistemology (what is known to be true) as opposed to
doxology (what is believed to be true) encompasses the various philosophies of research
approach.

The purpose of this phase was to collect qualitative inputs in the form of focus groups and
qualitative interviews to determine what the elements are that have a significant influence on
women empowerment. The secondary research in this phase was used to identify any historic
published reports that provided opinions and inputs to establish the relationship of government
policies and women empowerment.

PRIMARY DATA
Primary data is the foundation of the study. Following methodology will be adopted to collect
the essential information to analyse and accurate result:

1. Direct visit
2. Interview
3. Questionnaires

With the help of these questionnaires data will be collect and process by means of statistical
method.

SECONDARY DATA

Secondary data is one of the substantial of the study. The Researcher will collect Secondary data
from the following sources

 Books available on Women Empowerment

 Research Journals on Women Empowerment
 Government Reports
 Information Published in Newspaper
 Annual Reports and Other Documentation of Various Companies
 Use Of Internet

TOOLS EMPLOYED

Various Statistical tools will use such as fast statist, SPSS, AVONA etc. With the help of tables
Pie charts Histogram and Structured Tables will use in Explanation to bring the point more clear.
Therefore with this in mind, while presenting Argument in theory, diagrammatic, structural,
graphic representation will sort on some necessary cases exhibit will give to draw, made
calculation of percentage, ranks and means of comparisons.

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
 a. Scaling Techniques: scaling, describes the procedure of accessing number of various
degrees of opinion , attitude and other concepts
b. A popular and appropriate Statistical method will be adopted for Acheiving the objectives
of study and to find out the relevance of Hypothesis

SAMPLE

All the government Report published will be used as a reference for studies. The final sample
Analysed for primary and secondary data would be based on government reports Performance of
NGO’s and Initiative taken by corporate.

TENTANTIVE CHAPTER PROPOSAL

The entire study can be divided into following chapter and sub- chapter:

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Literature Review

Chapter 3: Research Design

Chapter 4: Data analysis and interpretation

Chapter 5: Suggestions and recommendations

Chapter 6: Conclusion

Appendix

Bibliography

BIBLIOGRAPHY
  Moghadam, Valentine M, (1990), WIDER Research for Action-Gender, Development
and Policy: Toward Equity and Empowerment, World t Institute for Development
Research of the United Nations University.
 Sahay, Sushama, (1998), Women and Empowerment: Approaches and Strategies,
Discovery Pub. House , New Delhi, P. 123
 Sahay, Sushama, (1998), Women and Empowerment: Approaches and Strategies,
Discovery Pub. House , New Delhi, P. 124
 Malhotra, Anju, Sidney Ruth Schuler, Carol Boender, (2002), ‘Measuring Women’s
Empowerment as a Variable in International Development’ Unpublished Paper Prepared
for the World Bank
 Kabeer, Naila,(1999), ‘ Resources. Agency, Achievement: Reflections on the
Measurement of Women’s Empowerment ‘, Development and Change, 30(3):435-64
 Champa, Limaya, (1999), ‘Women Power and Progress’, B-Publishing Corporation, New
Delhi.
 Kothai, L., (1995) ‘Women and Empowerment’, Gyan Publishing House, New Delhi.
 Bhatia, Anju, (2000), ‘Women’s Development and NGOs’, Rawat Publications, Jaipur.
 Goel, Arun, A, (2004) “Organization and Structure of Women Development and
Empowerment” and Deep and Deep Publication
 M. Razia Parvin, (2005), “Empowerment of women strategies and systems of Justice”
Dominate Publishers and Distributors New Delhi.
 “Global Monitoring” Report 2003-2003 Published by United Nations.

Roma P Bhagtiani Dr. B.S. Gitte

(Research Scholar) (Research Guide)