Income-Generating Activities and Multidimensional Empowerment of Rural Women in Watrap Block, Tamil Nadu
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.48165/IJEE.2026.62433Keywords:
Gender equity, Livelihood diversification, Market participation, Rural entrepreneurship, Self-help institutionsAbstract
The study was conducted during 2026 in three villages of Watrap block, Virudhunagar district, Tamil Nadu, to assess multidimensional empowerment among rural women participating in income-generating activities and examine its socioeconomic associations. A descriptive-correlational, cross-sectional design with retrospective pre-post assessment was adopted. Approximately 5% of eligible women were sampled from village-specific lists, yielding 130 respondents from Ammapatti, Kunnur and Vadukapatti; the unequal allocation reflected differences in village sampling-frame sizes. Empowerment was measured using a 30-item, five-dimensional schedule covering psychological, decision-making, social, economic and political domains, adapted with minor modifications from an existing empowerment scale and administered through a pre-tested interview schedule. Retrospectively reported overall empowerment increased by 16.47 percentage points after participation. Psychological empowerment recorded the largest gain (20.46), followed by social (18.08), economic (15.29), decision-making (15.00) and political empowerment (13.54). The largest indicator-level gains were observed in human-rights awareness (30.77), technology-adoption decisions (26.92) and access to modern technology (25.39). Education (r=0.479) and landholding (r=0.532) were positively associated with overall empowerment (p<0.01). Given the retrospective design, absence of a comparison group and restricted study area, findings represent perceived changes and associations rather than causal effects.
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