Bringing women into the mainstream economic activities and ensuring equal opportunity is one
of the major targets of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as pursued by the government
of Bangladesh. However, women in Bangladesh are dominated by a patrilineal and patriarchal
kinship system, which enforces the social and economic dependence of women on men and
prescribes the relative lower status of women. Although, there has been steady progress in
reducing gender inequality in different sectors (education, health, employment etc.) but there
exists a huge inequality in these sectors of Bangladesh and participation of women is very low
compared to their male counterpart. Gender inequality has appeared as the major stumbling
barrier in achieving the development targets.