Factor associated with women’s empowerment based on NDHS and NFHS data: a comparative study between Nigeria and North India

Dharma Raj, Banaras Hindu University
Asabe Ibrahim, Banaras Hindu University

The aim of the present study is to estimate women’s empowerment based on some autonomous factors like women’s households decision making power and their attitude towards wife beating using different variables. We have seen that in Nigeria, almost half of the population of currently married women were considered to have low empowerment and only one third are highly empowered; while in the case of North India about one fourth of the women have low empowerment and about half of them are highly empowered. Looking at women justification for wife beating, in both populations considered in this work, greater number of women opposed the idea of wife beating by husband, but there is about 12 percent higher tolerance in Nigeria compared to North India. Increase in the level education and age of respondents contributes positively to autonomy of women in both study populations.