Women’s empowerment and gender equity

Sudesh Nangia, Jawaharlal Nehru University

This paper highlights the current status of women in term of certain identified indicators of empowerment of women in India.viz.literacy and education; employment, wealth and income, nutrition, health and longevity, and autonomy in decision making. This paper further explores as to how current profile of women affects their social and economic life, family and society. The paper provides a set of strategies to improve the status of a woman so that she can realize her full potential (quality) to play her biological and social role better. The strategy lies in the empowerment of women which can be achieved through better education of the girl,promoting skill development and employment,job opportunities (financial empowerment),eliminating all practices that discriminate against women, eliminating all forms of exploitation,abuse,harrasment and violence against women and girls, and gender sensitization at all levels to bring equity in wages, hiring of jobs, school admissions, property right etc.