Abstract
Women’s participation in employment sectors is significantly lower than men, besides most women are actively engaged in domestic household work without pay. The current study focuses on the role of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act on women empowerment in the selected districts of West Bengal. The data for the study were obtained from the MGNREGA web portal. A Panel Least Squares regression model was employed to measure the impact of MGNREGA on the average annual per capita income of women. This study depicts that the number of women and women’s annual working-days have increased by 27.07 and 28.08% respectively since the financial year 2015–2016 in West Bengal. Similarly, the per capita income of women has increased by 52.19% during the same period. The correlation coefficient value of women’s working-days revealed that one unit increase in women’s working-days leads to an 11.611 unit rise in women’s average annual per capita income when all other factors are kept constant. Finally, the study suggests that more women’s participation in MGNREGA will improve the social and economic status of women in rural West Bengal.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
The MGNREGA data has a website that is open to the public for research and publication. As a result, there is no need to seek additional ethical approval from authorities.
References
Abbas S, Isaac N, Zia M, Zakar R, Fischer F (2021) Determinants of women’s empowerment in Pakistan: evidence from demographic and health surveys, 2012–13 and 2017–18. BMC Public Health 21(1):1–14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-11376-6
Acharya DR, Bell JS, Simkhada P, van Teijlingen ER, Regmi PR (2010) Women’s autonomy in household decision-making: a demographic study in Nepal. Reprod Health 7(1):1–12. https://doi.org/10.1186/1742-4755-7-15
Biswal DP (2017) Women empowerment through mahatma gandhi national rural employment guarantee act in India. IOSR-JHSS 22(2):18–24
Biswas S (2018) Work participation rate of women in West Bengal. IJRHS 6(8):423–434
Breitkreuz R, Stanton CJ, Brady N, Pattison-Williams J, King E, Mishra C, Swallow B (2017) The Mahatma Gandhi national rural employment guarantee scheme: a policy solution to rural poverty in India? Dev Policy Rev 35(3):397–417. https://doi.org/10.1111/dpr.12220
Chen Y (2016) Spatial autocorrelation approaches to testing residuals from least squares regression. PLoS ONE 11:1–19. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0146865
Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) (2013) Promoting empowerment of people in achieving poverty eradication, social integration and full employment integration and full employment and decent work for all. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Division for Social Policy and Development
Duflo E (2012) Women empowerment and economic development. J Econ Lit 50(4):1051–1079. https://doi.org/10.1257/jel.50.4.1051
Durbin J, Watson GS (1950) Testing for serial correlation in least squares regression I. Biometrika 37(3–4):409–428. https://doi.org/10.1093/biomet/37.3-4.409
Durbin J, Watson GS (1951) Testing for serial correlation in least squares regression. II. Biometrika 38(1–2):159–178. https://doi.org/10.1093/biomet/38.1-2.159
Farooqi SA, Saleem DI (2015) “Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and Empowerment of Women from BPL families in rural areas”: a case study of district Aligarh (India). Int J Soc Sci Manag 3(4):281–286. https://doi.org/10.3126/ijssm.v3i4.15974
Ghose AK (2012) Addressing the employment challenge: India’s MGNREGA [Working paper]. International Labour Office. http://www.ilo.org/employment/Whatwedo/Publications/working-papers/WCMS_175197/lang–en/index.htm
Ghosh SK (2017) MGNREGA and women participation: a case study. Abhinav 6:1–5
Jayanta D, Tapash M, Piu S, Sudip KB (2021) Variability and trends of rainfall using non-parametric approaches: a case study of semi-arid area. MAUSAM 71(1):33–44. https://doi.org/10.54302/mausam.v71i1.4
Joyita (2013) Mahatma gandhi national rural employment guarantee act: review of implementation. PRS Legislative Research. https://prsindia.org/theprsblog/mahatma-gandhi-national-rural-employment-guarantee-act-review-of-implementation
Kantor P (2009) Women’s exclusion and unfavorable inclusion in informal employment in Lucknow, India: barriers to voice and livelihood security. World Dev 37(1):194–207. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2008.05.002
Khera R, Nayak N (2009) Women workers and perceptions of the national rural employment guarantee act. Econ Polit Wkly XLIV(43):59–57
Kumar A, Ram Y, Butola B (2017) Contextualizing the concept of women’s empowerment and its approaches in Indian context. Natl Geogr J India 63(3):73–85. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.32051.35368
Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (2021) Annual report PLFS 2021–22 | Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation | Government of India. https://www.mospi.gov.in/publication/annual-report-plfs-2021-22
Nayak P, Mahanta B (2017) Women empowerment in India. Bull Polit Econ 5(2):155–183. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1320071
NITI Aayog (2021) National Multidimensiontal Poverty Index base line report. Government of India, New Delhi
Rodriguez Z (2022) The power of employment: effects of India’s employment guarantee on women empowerment. World Dev 152. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105803
Sarkar P, Kumar J, Supriya (2008) Impact of MGNREGA on reducing rural poverty and improving socio-economic status of rural poor: a study in Burdwan District of West Bengal. Agric Econ Res Rev 24:437–448
Singh K, Datta SK (2019) Female participation in NREGA programme: a comparative study of two backward districts in West Bengal, India. Indian J Labour Econ 62(3):499–515. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41027-019-00173-w
Singh SS (2022) Studies on food security and MGNREGS reveal severe distress in West Bengal. The Hindu. https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/kolkata/studies-on-food-security-and-mgnregs-reveal-severe-distress-in-west-bengal/article65694763.ece
State domestic product and district domestic product of West Bengal, 2014–15 (2016)
Sudarshan RM, Bhattacharya R, Fernandez G (2010) Women’s participation in the NREGA: some observations from fieldwork in Himachal Pradesh, Kerala and Rajasthan. IDS Bull 41(4):77–83. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1759-5436.2010.00154.x
Sultana M, Rao KSS (2016) Socio-economic development through the indian government scheme - MGNREGA: a review on West Bengal state. Int J Adv Res 4:167–183. https://doi.org/10.21474/IJAR01/1470
Tiwari N, Upadhyay R (2012) Constraints faced by the women beneficiaries under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Stud Home Comm Sci 6(2):99–102. https://doi.org/10.1080/09737189.2012.11885373
Acknowledgements
Not applicable.
Funding
Not applicable.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
AB, CR and VPS contributed to the conceptualization and study design. AB, and CR performed the statistical analysis. AB interpreted the results and discussed the findings. AB, CR, VPS, and SK finalized the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Ethical approval
Not applicable.
Informed consent
The secondary sources of data were used for this study. The concerned field agency obtained necessary informed consent from the respondent when they conduct the survey for data collection. Hence, there is no need to take additional ethical approval for this study.
Conflict of interest
The authors do not have any conflicts of interest to disclose.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Biswas, A., Roy, C., Sati, V. et al. The role of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act on women empowerment in selected districts of West Bengal, India. SN Soc Sci 4, 55 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-024-00857-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-024-00857-1