THE ROLE OF GARMENT WORKERS ON WOMEN EMPOWERMENT UNDER DHAKA CITY

Abstract

Bangladesh being a developing country, Women empowerment is an important aspect of the social, political and economic life of developing countries. Bangladesh is playing a key role in the global competitive ReadyMade

Garments (RMG) industry where women are the majority. The main purpose of this study is to assess the level of women empowerment. Besides, the attempt was also made to explore the contribution of some selected characteristics of the women garment workers. The study was conducted at three garment factory’s women workers under Dhaka city. Out of 800 populations, 80 women workers were randomly selected which constituted the sample. Simple and direct question was used to collect information from the respondents. Multiple regression method was administered and 9 independent variables namely: age, marital status, education, family size, wage(s) value, monthly family income, working experience, B.M.I. and nutritional status considered to run the analysis. The economic contribution of the women workers’ monthly family income is satisfactory. Low income groups’ contribution is about 23%, the medium income groups’ and high income groups’ contribution is about 33% and 44% respectively. The women empowerment was measured by the sum total score of economic, family & social and political empowerment. The majority (48.75 percent) of the women garment workers fell into the medium empowerment category, while 43.75 percent were found in high empowerment category. About 7.5 percent was found in low empowerment category. So, the empowerment of women has a satisfactory proportion. Among the nine selected characteristics of the women garment workers age and wage(s) value had significant positive and marital status had significant negative relationship with women empowerment. On the other hand, education, family size, monthly family income, working experience, B.M.I. and nutritional status of the respondents had no significant relationship with their women empowerment. Among the three factors of the women empowerment, economic empowerment and social and family empowerment had positive relationship. On the other hand, political empowerment and economic empowerment, and also political and social empowerment had negative relationship. Further study should be conducted with different garments factory in different areas and therefore, more research needs to be carried out on other aspects like assets ownership, training etc are needed to explore.