Women Empowerment in India: Facts from National Family Health Survey

Abstract

This paper assesses the overall level of women empowerment across states in India. To assess the
level of empowerment we compute women empowerment index for all states considering data from
Nation Family Health Survey 2015-16. We find considerable interstate variation in the level of women
empowerment, where poorer states are lagging far behind the richer states. Also states positions
differ in terms of different dimensions of women empowerment. Worse situation is observed in respect
of women dealing with income and employment which clearly reveals the devastating working
condition for women in the country. Thus the study opts for the creation of adequate work
opportunities for women for their overall empowerment and thereby reducing gaps in gender
development measures.

Key words: Women empowerment index, Employment, Gender development measure