Reports responses to interviews conducted in three rural villages in Eastern India in January 2000 as well as replies to questions to asked at a forest meeting of groups/persons interested in rural women and development. The questions were designed to provide information on gender-bias and...

This paper examines the importance of property rights in women’s empowerment in rural India. Arguments justifying the need for granting property rights to women are presented and the distinction is made between legal (formal) and customary (informal) rights. The ineffectiveness of legal right...

Reports on results of a survey, completed in 2000, of wives in three villages in the Phulbani district, Orissa, India. These villages are dominated by the Kondh scheduled tribe but some also contain members of the scheduled caste, called Dombs in Orissa. The article reports on the total...

Economic theories of the family and gender discrimination within the family are examined in the context of Kondh dominated tribal villages in rural western Orissa, India, drawing on results from a survey of 106 wives. The survey involved direct interviews using a structured questionnaire. This...

In male dominated societies like Kenya, men's superior status leading to power over women and control of valued resources, is supported by laws and policies that spell out and legitimise men's privileged and dominant status and is justified by religious, traditional, moral, and/or...

Provides a brief account of the development of the Joint Forest Management Scheme in India, especially in West Bengal, the state where joint forest management has been most widely adopted and which provided the genesis of the scheme that was adopted as part of India’s Forest Policy 1988. The...

Relying on a structured survey of 117 wives in four rural villages in the Midnapore District of West Bengal, this article investigates the influence on the intra-family status of wives of variables which may increase the bargaining power of wives in their family. Several indicators of status are...

Survey data on which this paper is based were collected in a rural district in Kenya between December 2000 and January 2001. The main objective was to identify the factors that determine female participation in household decision-making. Our results suggest that bargaining models and resource...

In 2000, household heads of three villages located in or near forests in the south of West Bengal, India, were interviewed using a structured questionnaire1. The questionnaire is attached as an Appendix to this paper. The questions asked were designed to provide information about the extent of...