Household-level Analysis of Women's Power Practice in Old Dhaka City, Bangladesh

Abstract

This study examines the extent of women's power in Old Dhaka City and determines the influential factors behind their practice of power. One finding is that the women in this city are moderately empowered, as indicated by the 5D Women's Power Index (WPI). The indices of self-worth with regard to decision making, decision-making opportunity, and ability to control and regulate one's own life show good performance, whereas the aspects of mobility and access to resources show moderate performance. The women in Old Dhaka have aspirations in life and confidence in their abilities. The logistic regression shows that educational attainment, age at the time of marriage of women and the husband-to-wife age gap positively affect the WPI at the 5% level of significance, whereas the income of women affects the WPI at the 10% level. However, the educational attainment of husbands and the existence of traditional socio-cultural norms have no effect on women's power.

Keywords:

• Age at marriage
• husband-to-wife age gap
• logistic regression
• Old Dhaka
• self-worth and decision making
• Women's Power Index

About the Authors

Shahida Pervin is a research associate at the Centre for Policy Dialogue in Dhaka, Bangladesh, an independent think tank with local roots and global outreach. She has worked with a number of research organizations. She graduated with distinction from Jagannath University and has been awarded a number of scholarships throughout her academic life, including the University Grants Commission Merit Scholarship. She has conducted studies on public debt, revenue mobilization and economic growth, technological catching up and industrialization, and banking sector and food security. She is currently involved in two research projects entitled “Assessment of Fruit and Vegetable Marketing System to Ensure Safe Food Delivery”, under the support of the Planning Commission, Ministry of Planning, People's Republic of Bangladesh, and “Unpaid Women's Contributions to the Economy”. Her research interests are income distribution, standard of living, poverty, development, food safety and security, financial sector, macroeconomic performance, policy support, quantitative analysis and economics of information.

Md. Azam Khan is an associate professor at the Department of Economics at Jagannath University in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He has served as the chairman of this department, and has taught at public and private universities in the country. He started his teaching career after studying Economics at the University of Dhaka. He has expert knowledge in development studies and privatization trends, policies and practices in Bangladesh. Through his work with different local and international research organizations, he has gained research experience on privatization, local governance and macroeconomic effects on human development.

Md.Mahmud Hasan Shah is an assistant professor at the Department of Economics at Jagannath University in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He started his career in university teaching after graduating with distinction in 2008. He specializes in econometrics, and his main research interest is macroeconometrics. He has conducted research on foreign remittance, public debt and investment in Bangladesh.