Does rural male out-migration account for female autonomy? A study on left-behind wives of Birbhum district, West Bengal

Women’s autonomy is a multifaceted concept. This paper makes effort to evaluate the autonomy of the left behind wives from Birbhum district, West Bengal. The main objective of this study is to show how the autonomy of the left behind wives differs from the nonmigrants wives with respect to different socio-economic backgrounds. Here three main dependent variables have been taken as the indicators of women’s autonomy viz. economic participation rate of the wives, decision making by the wives and mobility of the wives. The study infers that non-migrant wives have a higher work participation rate than left-behind wives. Social indicators like religion, caste, nature of migration and education of the wives are more significant than the other parameters for decision making of the wives. Left-behind wives are more independent in taking any decision for household purposes in absence of their migrant husbands. But, in the question of mobility wives enjoy very low autonomy within a household. Male dominance and headship mostly regulate the decisions behind the veil of wives’ autonomy.