Does Men’s Education Matters for Women Autonomy in India? An Investigation of National Family Health Survey -3 data

Autonomy is the ability to obtain information and make decisions about one's own concerns. It facilitates access to material resources such as food, land, income and other forms of wealth, and social resources including knowledge, power, prestige within the family and community. The article tries to address the role and importance of men education in women autonomy in India. The data from National Family Health survey round-3 was analyzed for India. The results from the bi-variate analysis shows that the women autonomy increases if husband is studied higher education. The findings shows that pattern of impact of husband education is almost same in all the (five) decision making. Around 15% of the women have not been involved in any decision making and only 33% of the women involved in the entire decision making. However the results are quite opposite if we control husband education with age of respondent, age of husband, women education, place of residence, type of family structure, religion, caste, wealth index and sex of household head. Husband education is not an important factor for women autonomy and there some other factors play an important role in women autonomy then the husband education.