Gender inequality within households: the impact of a womens development program in 36 Bangladeshi villages.

Abstract

In 1988-1989 researchers collected data of women from socioeconomically comparable villages in the Ghior and Harirampur subdistricts of the Manikganj district in Bangladesh to assess gender inequality. The treatment villages were those in which the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committees (BRAC) rural development program had been implemented. Control villages included those where another nongovernmental organization (NGO) has introduced a rural development program or no development interventions had been introduced at all. More women in the BRAC villages has access to income generation opportunities than those in the control villages--83.7%-78.6% (BRAC villages ) 52.2% (nonprogram villages) and 58% (NGO villages). Further women in the BRAC villages were more likely to have has special training and/or participated in adult literacy training. Nevertheless women who were members of any NGO other than BRAC in any village were more likely to secure loans save report an income and receive special or adult literacy training. 20% of women in BRAC villages reported that others make decisions about land whereas 29.5% did in control villages. Even though women in BRAC villages were more likely to have gone to the subdistrict center and to have purchased something on their own they were less likely to have traveled or traveled alone within the month prior to the study than those women in the control villages. All groups said that the ideal age at marriage was 18. Women in both BRAC and program villages felt that husbands of members of programs were less likely to desert their wives than those of nonmembers. Women in villages where BRAC had been operating for >2-<6 years had the highest level of education aspirations for their sons and daughters. Women from all the groups expected their sons to have more education than their daughters.

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