International Journal of Social Science : Vol. 3. No. 4, 427-442, Dec 2014

DOI No. 10.5958/2321-5771.2014.00016.7

Empowerment and domestic violence: An

empirical investigation on rural women in

Bankura district

Maniklal Adhikary 1* and Papita Dutta 2

1 Department of Economics, Burdwan University, West Bengal, India.

2 Department of Economics, Guskara Mahavidyalaya, Guskara, Burdwan, West Bengal,

India.

Corresponding author: drmaniklaladhikary@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Domestic violence against women is an emerging issue of concern to social and

health planner. This study has examined the impact of economic and political

empowerment of women on incidence of domestic violence on women. We have

formed a composite index of economic empowerment using Principal Component

Analysis method. Incidence of domestic violence has been measured by the fact

whether the woman suffered from physical assault in last six months from her

family member. The impact of economic and political empowerment of woman

along with other individual and household characteristics on the incidence

of domestic violence has been traced out on the basis of a set of primary data

collected from 125 ever-married women residing in the district of Bankura, West

Bengal. A binary probit model has been formulated for estimation. Our cross

section study reveals a negative and significant relation of economic and political

empowerment of women with the incidence of domestic violence on women. This

relation may be due to having increased voice and consciousness of politically and

economically empowered women.

Keywords: DomesticViolence, Economic Empowerment, Political Empowerment

and Rural Women

JEL codes: C21; J16

Introduction

Violence against women is a common curse irrespective of social customs,

economic status, caste, creed, religion and other cultural backgrounds. Quest for

the nature and causes of violence against women is still now a researchable issue to

the social and health planners and the researchers in social sciences. Practically our

patriarchy society with its dominating features is likely to add fuel to the fire with