A society cannot develop without women’s equal participation in the decision-making process within the family as well as in the society. Unquestionably, a woman can do this only when she becomes empowered at least to some extent to have control over resources. Women empowerment is a concept that enables women to enhance their status in their family as well as in society and helps to take active participation in every sphere of social aspects. Based on a cross-sectional study among 110 ever-married women of the Lodha tribe, an ex-criminal tribe, in an Indian village, we have tried to find out whether some socio-cultural factors like education, family type, and earning opportunity influence women’s decision-making capacity, and thereby, their empowerment or not. The decision-making capacity was assessed with reference to eight specific socio-cultural dimensions, _viz, _education, marriage, family planning, children’s schooling, incurring expenditure, shopping, going outside, and going to hospital. The data of the earner women were compared with those of a control group who were not involved in any kind of earning pursuit. The study reveals that the level of participation of women in the decision-making process from various household perspectives was hardly satisfactory. Majority of the study participants could not get chance to put their decisions on the family matters selected for the study. The findings further show that women’s participation in Self Help Group activities and/or involvement as wage labourers play an effective mechanism to enhance women’s decision-making capacity within family. It is also found that age, education, family type, and earning opportunity are significantly associated with the level of participation in the decision-making process.
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