Resource Access and Status Versus Values and Agency: Is There a Correspondence?

Type Journal Article - Gender Issues
Title Resource Access and Status Versus Values and Agency: Is There a Correspondence?
Author(s)
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2016
Page numbers 1-23
URL http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12147-016-9150-0
Abstract
This paper attempts to explore the correspondence (or lack of it) between women’s access to resources and their social status on one hand and between women’s social status and their values and agency on the other. This would necessarily involve an assessment of the role of women’s access to resources towards their attitudinal transformation and ability to exercise agency. However, this also entails an understanding of the circumstances including norms and institutions amidst which women exercise choices. While gender research today boasts of rich empirical contributions, the implication of women’s improved resource access on intra-family-gendered relation as well as on women’s own preferences and agency roles still deserves a comprehensive inquiry. This paper attempts to conduct such an exercise in Indian context, by utilizing existing demographic health survey and other data. It observes that despite women’s control over resources and access to education, gendered role as well as attitudes and preferences of men and of women themselves, remain intact. While this observation underlines the impinging role of social context, alongside it also reflects the inefficacy of using conventional indicators to measure women’s autonomy and gender equality.

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