Income Generating Activities of Rural Women: A Tool for Poverty Alleviation and Decision-making

The present paper attempts to examine the income generating activities among rural women in Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh in the year of 2019-20. The study was conducted in 06 villages located at bichhua block of Chhindwara district. Data for the study was collected from a sample of 100 respondents. The study found that higher percentage of the rural women (52%) belonged to young age group, (30%) of the rural women were in the category of high school, (50%) were marginal rural women, (50%) of rural women had small family size having up to 5 members, (55 %) rural women had nuclear family system, (45.00%) of rural women were doing work as agriculture, (45.00%) had annual income 15,001 to 20,000, (70%) of the respondents had high training need while about 20% of them had medium training need for income generation activities of rural women, (85%) training needs were in nursery establishment and the rest three components namely vegetable production, animal husbandry and poultry activities claimed more or less similar proportion of training needs. The relationship between independent variables and extent of training needs in conducting Income Generating Activities was significant with age, education, landholding, type of family, occupation and annual income.

This shows the profile of rural women who engaged in income-generating activities in agriculture and allied fields.

Decision-making is the critical factor for women empowerment.

Vocational Training is the critical factor for decision-making about farming and livelihood activity.