Empowerment of Women and Livelihood Security of Farm Households in Rainfed Regions of Karnataka

This paper has assessed the empowerment of farm women in terms of their socio-economic status. It has analyzed the impact of women empowerment on livelihood security of farm households. Empowerment index, Spearman-Brown Split half reliability test, Gini co-efficient analysis and Livelihood security index were used in the study. The data were collected from 160 women-respondents through personal interview method in Kolar (eastern dry zone) and Mandya (southern dry zone) districts of Karnataka. The paper has revealed that women empowerment was higher in Kolar than in Mandya district. The inequality was relatively lower in highly women empowered situation. The overall livelihood security index (1.399 and 0.608) indicated that households belonging to high women empowered irrigated situation were highly secured in terms of livelihood in Kolar and Mandya districts, indicating the importance of women empowerment in the livelihood of farm households. The study has suggested that literacy level of female children should be increased and ownership of land and other assets should be made joint.