Gendered Participation in Decision-making: An Insight from Rural Varanasi, India

Women may gain independence, whether they are themselves migrants or remain in the villages as the household heads when their husbands out-migrate, or they may lose independence and become subjugated to men. Hence an attempt has been made in this paper to study the decision-making power of the wives left behind due to their husbands’ out-migration. Primary data has been collected during January-March 2010 by undertaking a complete house listing of six villages of Pindra block of Varanasi, a district in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. In cases, where there is presence of male members in the households especially fathers-in-law, decisions over the use of remittance are in their hands. In general, it has been found that the decision-making power of left-behind wives is quite high inspite of the fact that the study area is located in northern India where prevalence of patriarchal system is quite noteworthy.