A review on feminization of agriculture and women empowerment in Bangladesh

Abstract

Concern to women empowerment in relation to their engagement in agriculture of Bangladesh is not new, but it has not always been acted upon accordingly. The study was intended to investigate the relationship between mounting participation of women in agriculture of Bangladesh and their empowerment attainments. As a probing instrument, this study brings into play the adoption- equity-power flow incorporating women’s acceptance to agricultural work preference (adoption) to enhance their empowerment attainment (equity) which may also turn out to be ineffectual (power) due to lack of proper policy attention in time. The task of review was done by collecting various articles from Google Scholars and other possible web-links and then was analysed within a suitable theoretical and practical basis by the researcher. The paper argues that numerous factors like lack of access to land, lack of education, lack of employment opportunity, wage discrimination between men and women, psychological backwardness of women, lack of decision making power in the household affairs and so on, acted as stumbling blocks to the pathways of empowering women in rural Bangladesh. The paper suggested that women’s greater extent of engagement in agriculture of Bangladesh largely enabled them in attaining higher empowerment which must be appreciated by the policy makers by formulating gender inclusive policies to assist these women in overcoming the gender based socio-cultural and economic barriers jamming their pathway towards uppermost empowerment attainment in context of rural Bangladesh.