Women Empowerment, A Myth or Reality? A Reflection on Gender Empowerment Measure, especially in Assam

Abstract

Today society demands to formulate inclusive growth for our socio-economic development. In order to achieve this target, there should be a rationalization of the trend of growth of human resource development indices. Human resource development indicates two things: human development and human resource development. Human Resource development is measured by Human Development Index. Human development means the development of life expectancy at birth, literacy and decent standard of living. Human resource development means enlargement of the people's choices, their skills, capacities, attitudes etc. (UNDP Report, 1996)

Besides these indicators of development as a whole, for measuring women empowerment there are separate indices for women itself. The Human Development Report in 1998 contains two gender aware measurements i.e. Gender-Related Development Index (GDI) and Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). The GDI indicates three variables of Human Development Index for measuring women status regarding their life expectancy, educational attainment and their standard of living. The Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) looks at women representation in parliament, women's share of managerial and professional job and women's share of national income. However, in the present society there is a demand to formulate human capital. It means that it is the quality of human beings which helps in the development of the country in accelerating the pace of development. For enhancing the pace of growth and development, there should be access to equal rights for everyone. But in reality we get a negative picture in the context of Gender Empowerment Measures. Whenever we talk about the status of women then it has been found that more than 90% women are engaged in unorganized sector, their works are not officially counted, they get lower wage than the men for the same work, they have comparatively poor health status, low educational status, and lower skill than the men. They are generalized as a group of vulnerable and marginalized section in all spheres viz. in educational field, in social situation, in economic activities and political field and so on.

Key words: Women, development and its reality.