Empowerment of women dairy cooperative members and non-members: An index

Women empowerment is an active, multi-dimensional process, which should enable women to realize their full identity and power in all spheres of life. The present study has attempted to examine the overall empowerment of women dairy cooperative members and non-members. The study covered thirty women beneficiaries from each of the two dairy cooperative villages and another thirty non-members from each of the two control villages. Thus, total numbers of respondents were 120. The study revealed that majority of cooperative members and non-members had high level of involvement in decision-making in livestock and household activities whereas, co-operative members were more economically independent and self confident than non-members. All the co-operative members and majority of non-cooperative members had medium level of overall empowerment.