In societal development, conception of empowerment has vital role. This phrase is linked with gender equality. Modernization of global development will need a reappraisal of the concept and its application to many facets of human life. The notion of empowerment entails numerous things to many people. Concepts of choice, liberty, agency, capacity, contribution, self-sufficiency, and increased resources are common to almost all definitions. Most of the researchers agreed on the idea of empowerment as ways to improve quality of life and expand the basis of human well-being. Briefly, empowerment can serve as a tool for effecting deep and broad-based social revolution.
In social science literature, it is documented that the process of social change can be discovered at the personal and structural levels. At one end, social change is visualized as a consequence of the development of individuals, gained through education, training, access to material resources, and the like. From this perspective, structural change is supposed to be an automatic result of personal alteration. On the other end, the human being is seen as a part of society, and change is considered impossible unless social structures related to political power are changed primarily. Individual and structural transformation are closely associated with the individual’s inner life shapes, social environment, and that environment, in turn, exerts a deep influence on one’s mystical and psychological well-being. The symbol of the body politic, likening all of humanity to a single social organism gives a valuable framework to discover empowerment as means to follow the transformation of individuals and civilization. Empowerment depends on and contributes to a system in which different actors are provided the resources needed for each to make a unique contribution to the whole. From this conception, it can be established that individual and collective empowerment can be considered as the extension of vision, capacity, and choice necessary for people to act as active agents of human well-being and affluence.
The Protagonists of Social Transformation: It suggests that there are three elements critically important such as the individual, the institutions of society, and the community. In this view empowerment is described as the act assisting individuals to manifest constructive capacities in creative and disciplined ways, institutions to exercise authority in a manner that leads to the progress and upliftment of people and communities to provide an environment in which culture is improved and individual wills and capacities combine in collective action. Ideas of “us” and “them” deserve particular consideration. Discourse in development spheres is often entrenched in conceptions of the “empowered” members of society that help the “disadvantaged” or “downgraded group.” Many researchers revealed that the desire to eliminate social inequalities is indisputably moral feeling, but us/them dichotomies only extend and reinforce existing divisions. Careful thought needs must be given in which empowerment can be approached as a universal and shared enterprise. It has been observed that Historical processes have developed inequalities that must be addressed. But the development basis should be one in which every individual and group is presumed to have scope for progression. From this viewpoint, the marginalized are not without capacity, and the privileged are not all strong. All have capacity to develop and all have a responsibility to advance the welfare of the whole. Lastly, though empowerment signifies someone or something being invested with authority, the social dynamics of power seem to have been generally overlooked in debates on development at the United Nations.
Prerequisites for Social Transformation:
Scholars stated that participation in the systems and structures of society is important prerequisite for social transformation. It is not sufficient for people to get projects, even if they have a voice in certain decisions. They must actively involve in decision-making processes: identify problems, formulate solutions and approaches, enjoy benefits, and determine criteria for appraisal.
At last, the ability to recognise the root causes of inequality will be decisive to the empowerment of populations to become agents of social transformation. Though population gets benefits of advancement, if it is unable to discriminate the drivers of social injustice and inequity, they cannot eliminate such practices from social structure. If empowerment is to lead to social transformation, it must involve the ability to identify the forces that modernize one’s social reality, to recognise the opportunities and challenges offered by that reality, and to plan initiatives for the improvement of civilization.
Women’s economic empowerment refers to the ability for women to enjoy their right to control and benefit from resources, assets, income and their own time, as well as the ability to manage risk and improve their economic status and well being.
The GDI measures gender gaps in human development achievements by accounting for disparities between women and men in three basic dimensions of human development—health, knowledge and living standards using the same component indicators as in the HDI. The GDI is the ratio of the HDIs calculated separately for females and males using the same methodology as in the HDI. It is a direct measure of gender gap showing the female HDI as a percentage of the male HDI.
Gender equality has following dimentions:-
- Equal access to basic social services, including education and health.
- Equal opportunities for participation in political and economic decision-making.
- Equal reward for equal work.
- Equal protection under the law.
- Elimination of discrimination by gender and violence against women.
- Equal rights of citizens in all areas of life, both public – such as the workplace – and private such as the home.
Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) seeks to measure relative female representation in economic and political power. It considers gender gaps in political representation, in professional and management positions in the economy, as well as gender gaps in incomes .GEM is a measure of inequalities between men’s and women’s opportunities in a country. It gives indicators to explain ways in which the inequalities are associated with three components of development: education, employment and political participation. The concept of empowerment can be explored through three interrelated dimensions: agency, resources and achievements .
Detailed analysis of the dimensions of GEM are:-
GEM Dimension 1: ‘Political Participation and Decision-making Power’ Indicators: i) % Share of Parliamentary Seats (elected); ii) % Share of Seats in Legislature (elected); iii) % Share of Seats in Zilla Parishads (elected); iv) % Share of Seats in Gram Panchayats (elected); v) % Candidates in Electoral Process in National Parties in the Parliamentary election and vi) % Electors Exercising the Right to Vote in the Parliamentary election.
GEM Dimension 2: ‘Economic Participation and Decision-making Power’ Indicators: i) % Share of officials in service in Indian Administrative Service, Indian Police Service and Indian Forest Service; and ii) % Share of enrolment in medical and engineering colleges.
GEM Dimension 3: ‘Power over Economic Resources’ Indicators: i) % Female/Male with Operational Land Holdings; ii) % Females/Males with Bank Accounts in Scheduled Commercial Banks (with credit limit above Rs. 2 lakh); iii) Share of Female/Male Estimated Earned Income Share per capita per annum.