Measuring Empowerment between Working and Non-working Women: Malaysian Perspective
Keywords:
Empowerment, decision making, working women, non-working women, personal affairs, children's affairsAbstract
The main aim of this study is to measure empowerment between working and non-working women in their families by considering their decision making power as the level of empowerment. The study was conducted in one of the districts of Gombak in Malaysia. Three residential areas and three academic institutions were selected as the sub-study areas of Gombak district. The respondents of the study consisted of 132 (66 working & 66 non-working) women from the selected study areas. The first objective of this study was to examine decision-making power between working and non-working women on the aspects of personal and children affairs. The results revealed that working women enjoyed greater power and freedom compared to non-working women on the above aspects. The study also investigated the overall assessment of the level of decision-making power between working and non-working women and the results revealed that the majority of the respondents of the working group had ‘high’ and ‘moderate’ level of decision-making whereas only a few respondents from non-working group had such levels of decision-making power. The article concluded that working women were more empowered compared to non-working women. Finally, the study suggests that interventions are necessary especially for non-working women who enjoy less freedom and exercise less power in family decision-making. These interventions refer to increasing education and income opportunity for women that might increase their decision-making power as well as their empowerment.
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