MEASURING INDIVIDUAL AGENCY OR EMPOWERMENT ......– Manu Smrti. Centre for Development Studies,...

MEASURING INDIVIDUAL AGENCY

OR EMPOWERMENT:

A STUDY IN KERALA

VIJAYAMOHANAN PILLAI N

SABINA ALKIRE

April 2007

CENTRE FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM

KERALA, INDIA

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The Research Team

Vijayamohanan Pillai N Coordinator

Sabina Alkire

Mridul Eapen Consultant

Valery Chirkov

Sebastian Sylva Leander

Project Associates: Thiruvananthapuram

Jyothi S Nair

Sunitha Sukendran

Field Investigators: Thrissur

Bhadra

Vidhya K

Remya AV

Dhanya John

e-mail: [email protected]

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Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: Measuring Individual Agency in Multiple Domains:

Introduction to the Study

Sabina Alkire

Chapter 2: A Note on Kudumbasree

Vijayamohanan Pillai N

with inputs from Sunny Jose and Rakhe PB

Chapter 3: Measuring Women’s Agency in Kerala:

Demographic Characteristics of the Sample


Chapter 4: Measuring Agency: Testing a New Indicator in Kerala

Sabina Alkire and Valery Chirkov

Chapter 5: Integrating Agency into Multidimensional Poverty

Comparisons: A Conceptual Proposal

Sabina Alkire and Sebastian Silva Leander

Chapter 6: Women’s Definitions of Freedom and Empowerment in

Kerala: Results of Focus Groups in Thiruvananthapuram and Thrissur

Sabina Alkire and Mridul Eapen

with Jyothi Nair and Sunitha Sukendran

Chapter 7: Understanding Agency in South Kerala: Two Life Histories

Sunitha Sukendran and Jyothi Nair

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Preface

Marco Polo, the 13th century Venetian traveler, who visited Kerala on his way back from

China, is said to have remarked about Kerala as a land ‘where everything is different’ –

different from other regions, different from the very neighbours. This difference has

attracted not only travelers but also a host of researchers from all disciplines, who have

elevated Kerala to the pedestal of a ‘model’ for her unique experience in human

development sans economic growth. Studies galore dissect every possible aspects of this

experience, including, of course, women empowerment. But the present study on women

empowerment is distinct in that it proposes a new measure of agency or autonomy or

empowerment, one adapted from Self-determination theory. I find some parallels

between this Self-determination theory and Lenin’s Self-determination theory at the

national level. But the present study moves in an entirely different direction. It seeks to

develop and disseminate a measure of empowerment or agency freedom, and to explore

whether it is desirable to integrate this measure into multidimensional poverty

comparisons or indices.

There is considerable synergy among those working on the capability approach and also

those within poverty reduction, to identify stronger ways of measuring capabilities and to

improve multidimensional poverty comparisons. The present study focuses on three

questions:

i) how accurately do certain indicators of freedom capture agency or self-

determination?

ii) how do we compare multidimensional poverty vectors that include freedoms?

iii) can we develop capability measures – and analytical tools – that can be used

by NGOs and small organizations rather than only large institutions?

The present CDS-Harvard study specifically attempts to use Ryan and Deci measure of

autonomy, which has the unique benefit of seeming to apply in both individualist and

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collectivist cultures, on the data obtained on the process of empowerment of groups of

women in the context of the State-sponsored ‘Kudumbasree’ programme in Kerala.

This Report represents part of a larger study, funded by the International Development

Research Centre (IDRC), Canada, and led by the Global Equity Initiative of Harvard

University, and is advanced in partnership with Centre for Development Studies (CDS) in

Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India and with the University of Central America in El

Salvador. CDS received assistance for this study from the Sanskriti Foundation, New

Delhi and from the Harvard University directly. We deeply appreciate and acknowledge

our sponsors.

The survey was conducted during December 2005 and January-February 2006 in

Thiruvananthapuram and Trissur Districts of Kerala, with assistance from Jyothi Nair and

Sunitha Sukendran in Thiruvananthapuram and Vidhya, Dhanya John, Remya and

Bhadra in Thrissur. Some of our students at CDS (Alice Sebastian, S. Beena, K. Indhu

and G. Remya Prabha) also helped us during some crucial context in the survey in

Thiruvananthapuram. We are grateful to all of them.

A dissemination workshop (on ‘Individual Agency or Empowerment: A New Measure?’)

was conducted at CDS on April 22 and 23 in 2006. We have immensely benefited from

the interactions with the participants: K. Narayanan Nair, Padmini Swaminathan, K.

Navaneetham, D Jayaraj, Preet Rastogi, Sreelekha Nair, Anupama Roy, Aliyamma

Vijayan, V. Santhakumar, U. S. Mishra, J. Devika, Kesavan Nair, and others. The

workshop also facilitated for the presentation of the studies of four of the Sanskriti

scholars: Jalandhar Pradhan, Rahul Mukhopadhyay, Rakhe P.B, and Vanishree Joseph.

We are deeply indebted to all of them.

At CDS, we have, as usual, had all the full support and cooperation from each and

everybody concerned that have gone a long way towards the fruition of this Report. We

would like to take this moment to place on record our deep gratitude to the Director, K.

Narayanan Nair for his encouraging interest in the progress of the study. Our full

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appreciation and deep gratitude also go to the Registrar, Soman Nair, and his colleagues

in the administration, library and computer center, especially, K Muraleedharan, T.

Velappan Nair, K. Raghuvara Panickar, A. Chandra, Suresh, Chidambaram Pillai, V. K.

Anil Kumar, V. Ushadevi, S. Gopakumar, E. Sujana Bai, K. B. Sreekumari and others.

With profound gratitude we also note that this study would not have been possible but for

the full cooperation of the Kudumbashree units in Trivandrum and Thrissur districts of

Kerala. And this was made possible by the kind support of TK Jose, Executive Director

and B Usha Devi, Director (Southern Region) of Kudumbashree of the State Poverty

Eradication Mission of the Government of Kerala. All of our meetings with the

Kudumbashree participants were arranged so efficiently by B Usha Devi both in

Trivandrum and through PB Muhammed, District Mission Coordinator, in Thrissur. We

owe a great deal to them all.

We remember now, as always, with mixed feelings of awe and compassion, the life

stories of scores of women we met during our survey; we still see the spark of their eyes;

we still hear the spurt of their sound. We are gratified if this Report can make that spark

of their eyes seen and that spurt of their sound heard everywhere out. We dedicate this

Report to them.

‘Yatra naaryastu poojyante

remante tatra devata:

(‘Where women are worshipped,

there gods are pleased.’)

– Manu Smrti.

Centre for Development Studies, Vijayamohanan Pillai N.

Thiruvananthapuram, Coordinator.

04 April, 2007.

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Chapter 1

Measuring Individual Agency in Multiple Domains:1

Introduction to the Study

Sabina Alkire

The centrality of action, and particularly action by poor persons to confront situations of

serious deprivation, has led many working on poverty reduction to recognise the

importance of introducing concerns of empowerment, agency, self-direction, and self-

determination into poverty measurement and analyses.2 The emphasis on empowerment

builds upon previous studies highlighting the importance of participation and

mobilisation both because of their evident intrinsic value to communities3 as well as their

instrumental contribution to more effective and sustained activities.4 It also builds upon

the legacy of research on women’s empowerment across countries.5

Recently, a number of studies have focused on the difficult but vital problem of

measuring empowerment.6 Both Alsop and Heinsohn, and Narayan et al, consider

empowerment to be comprised of two sub-components. The first are opportunities that

convey information on institutional possibilities open to a person or a community, using

data on access, service provision, and so on. The second is agency. At the individual

level, agency is an assessment of “what a person can do in line with his or her conception

of the good.”7 Alsop and Heinsohn define agency as “an actor’s ability to make

meaningful choices – that is, the actor is able to envisage and decide on options.”8

1 Acknowledge: Afsan Bhadalia for research assistance… Alsop, Holland, Ryan, Deci, Chirkov forcomments on the Questionnaire.2 Alkire 2005, Alsop and Heinsohn 2005, McGillivray 2005, Narayan-Parker 2005 inter alia3 Sen 1985, Banuri 1990, Cernea and World Bank 1991, Wignaraja 1993, Chambers 1997, Sen 1999,Narayan-Parker 2000, Sen 2000, Alkire 2002, Drèze and Sen 20024 Isham, Narayan and Pritchett 1995, Woolcock 1998, World Bank 20005 Kabeer 1999,6 Alsop and Heinsohn 2005, Narayan-Parker 20057Sen 1985: 2068 Alsop and Heinsohn 2005 p 2

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There is a paucity of indicators for agency at the individual level. Some use asset

indicators to measure agency – for example, skills and literacy to measure human assets,

and social capital measures to indicate social assets, and so on.

The Agency Measure

The present study revised and field-tested a new measure of agency. This drew upon, and

simplified, the measure of autonomy developed by psychologists Richard Ryan, Ed Deci,

Valery Chirkov, and others working in Self Determination Theory. This indicator was

chosen, following a survey of potential measures, for two reasons. First, it studies agency

not as a global uniform capacity of a person, but with respect to different domains of

well-being or poverty. This is important because a person might be disempowered in the

work force, unable to vote, yet able to decide on her children’s level of education, able to

make health decisions on behalf of herself and other family members, and able to move

around in the community as she wishes. The domains in which individuals can and

cannot exert agency are important to grasp. Second, this measure approaches agency as

cross-culturally important ability of persons’ to advance states or activities they value. In

Sen’s account of agency a person’s values guide and shape the goals she advances – this

is important to stress because some approaches to agency look at a person’s power to

effect change, without any regards for their values. Furthermore, in this measure agency

is a kind of freedom that is valued in individualistic and collectivist cultures alike –

which is important as most indicators of agency are correlated with individualism.9

According to the SDT formulation, a person is autonomous when his or her behaviour is

experienced as willingly enacted and when he or she fully endorses the actions in which

he or she is engaged and/or the values expressed by them. People are therefore most

autonomous when they act in accord with their authentic interests or integrated values

and desires (Deci & Ryan 1985, 2000; Ryan 1995). SDT contrasts autonomy with

heteronomy, ‘in which one’s actions are experienced as controlled by forces that are

9 Chirkov, Ryan, Kim and Kaplan 2003

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phenomenally alien to the self, or that compels one to behave in specific ways regardless

of one’s values or interests’ (Chirkov et al 2003:98). Again, this contrast coheres with

the concept of agency for which we seek a measure. An agent is “someone who acts and

brings about change.”10 The opposite of a person with agency is someone who is forced,

oppressed, or passive.

To determine autonomy, a survey asks respondents whether they engage in certain

practices (these could relate to health, to education, to employment, or to any other

domain of poverty or wellbeing). Respondents are then asked to rate each of four possible

reasons why they felt or believed or engaged in the practice, from a low number not at all

because of this reason; to a high number completely because of this reason. In simple

terms, Reason C establishes to what extent the person was coerced or forced to act (by

another person, or by force of circumstances); Reason I, the extent to which others’

opinions and values influenced her choice. Reason V establishes whether she herself

valued it, and Reason T, whether her thoughts on the matter were integrated with her

wider thinking about her own life.

In many activities, several or even all possible reasons are present in varying degrees. For

example, in considering why academics do research, one might detect all four of these

reasons to be present in varying extents. To some extent a researcher could be required to

undertake research for considerations of income or grant or tenure – if these could not be

obtained by other means – and would be punished for not doing so (C); to some extent

researchers also moderate the quality and topics of their research such that they will

receive approbation and respect of their peers and to avoid scorn (I). Many also truly

enjoy and value the research itself – the process of reading, formulating, discovery,

writing, and conversation (V). Finally, the research may be developed in order to

contribute to a large project – the reduction of poverty for example – which researchers’

have deliberately chosen as a long-term commitment that coheres with their wider social

and moral values (T).

10 Sen 1999: 19

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The terms that Ryan and Deci use for these for categories are given below.

C. External Regulation: Because of external pressure (to obtain rewards or avoid

punishment).

I. Introjected Regulation: Because doing so will gain approval by others or avoid guilt

and shame.

V. Identified Regulation: Because the person identifies the activity to be valuable

T. Integrated Regulation: Because activity is both valuable, and its pursuit is integrated

with the person’s other activities.11

Ryan and Deci Chirkov et al aggregate the four responses into a weighted index that represents

the ‘agency’ measure corresponding to the focal domain or practice.

Adaptations made

The survey instrument was designed initially during a workshop involving all researchers

and enumerators as well as Kudumbashree staff. It was translated into Malayalam, which

was spoken by all respondents, by this team. Back translation was accomplished by a

Harvard graduate student from Kerala who was fluent in written and spoken Malayalam

as it was her native language. The survey was piloted with at least two researchers

present at each interview, and both the questions and the translation were revised several

times in light of input from pilot surveys as well as participatory focus group discussions

and comments from respondents and observations of the survey team members. Copies of

the pilot survey were sent to external researchers as well for comment.

Domains: The agency question was formulated for each of six domains: Education,

Employment, Household Duties, Health, Mobility, and Group Participation. This set of

domains were chosen through intensive discussion of the survey team and Kudumbashree

staff in India and El Salvador. They include categories proposed by similar studies of

11These four are explained at greater length in Deci and Ryan 2000.

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empowerment, as well as categories used in the recent Kerala Human Development

Report, and some categories are relevant to the Kudumbashree definitions of poverty.

For each domain, questions were designed to capture the well-being of the respondent in

that domain. Certain ‘asset’ oriented questions were used directly from the Alsop-

Heinsohn questionnaire for the purpose of comparison. Standard demographic variables

for this region were collected, as well as information required to construct a socio-

economic index in the Kerala Human Development Report. Finally, certain more global

questions regarding agency were added, based on the World Values Survey. The final

questionnaire appears as Appendix one.

The pilot and survey were administered by enumerators from the area who were fluent in

Malayalam. In the pilot period enumerators were actively engaged in the process of

improving survey design such that it was easy to use, clear, and meaningful for

respondents. Enumerators also used best practices in terms of working with

Kudumbashree to gain introductions to participants, wearing simple clothing, and seeking

to put the respondents at ease and to listen attentively and perceptively to their responses.

In addition to filling out the questionnaire itself, following each interview, the facilitator

themselves wrote detailed comments regarding the respondent’s apparent agency with

respect to each of the six domains, and noted her own subjective cardinal ranking of the

degree of agency evinced in each domain. In addition to the survey work, enumerators

carried out focus group discussions, and in-depth interviews.

In the process of developing a survey instrument for destitute, poor, and recently poor

respondents, several adaptions were made to the SDT autonomy measures. First, the

applicability of each of the four reasons was rated on a four-point rather than a five-point

scale to avoid giving a ‘middle’ value which people would tend to select. Second, for

some surveys a fifth reason of “no control” was added because that reflected the reality of

some respondents. Third, the way that the question was asked in some cases was two-

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stage: participants first identified whether a motivation was more accurate or more

inaccurate; they then would clarify if it was “completely true” or “partly true” etc. Fourth,

simple explanations were used to animate respondents and encourage a clear

understanding of the measure. Fifth, at the close of each interview the facilitators or

enumerators made qualitative notes on the resondent’s agency with respect to each

domain. Furthermore, facilitators themselves ranked the agency or autonomy of each

participant. Examples of these will be provided in an appendix and these data are also

being analysed separately.

Survey Respondents12

The Kerala survey covered 227 respondents (a similar survey was done in El Salvador).

As the purpose of the study was to explore the measure of empowerment itself using

qualitative and quantitative data, not to test hypotheses for a broader population,

randomization was not required. Rather the sample was selected purposively to reflect

socio-economic diversity in southern Kerala. The state can be divided into three areas,

southern, central and north, broadly conforming to the regions of Travancore-Cochin

(princely states) and Malabar (under the British), which were merged as part of the

linguistic reorganisation of the Indian states in 1956.

Southern Kerala was chosen because of the diversity of expected agency experiences.

Some poor women in this area are considered to have relatively strong agency – and

others do not. Thus it seemed that the respondents would demonstrate a wide spectrum of

agency freedom and unfreedom, which an adequate measure could capture. Within

Southern Kerala, Trivandrum district and in central Kerala, Thrissur district were

selected. Ideally the study would also have included a district (for instance Wynad) in

the north as well to increase diversity of respondents both culturally and with respect to

experiences of, and conceptions of, agency and autonomy.

12 This part is prepared with inputs from Vijayamohanan Pillai N.

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In Trivandrum, the study covered Venganoor and Vithura Panchayats, as well as

Trivandrum city. Venganoor is considered a strong panchayat, and has been operating

NHGs since 1999. This panchayat has 15 Wards (a ward in Kerala roughly corresponds

to a village in other parts of India.) Vithura is weaker and includes tribal groups, two of

which were included in this study.

In Trissur, the study covered Kodakkara, Thalikkulam, and Athirapelly panchayats, as

well as Trissur city. These districts were chosen because they had a variety of climactic

areas, from costal to mountainous, and included significant tribal populations.

Thalikkulam also included a smaller urban area. Furthermore the enumerators were

familiar with these areas.

To obtain access to a diverse sample of respondents from all areas, a partnership was

orchestrated with Kudumbashree. Kudumbashree is an innovative, women-centred

poverty eradication programme of the Government of Kerala which has worked to

eradicate poverty in Kerala since the 1990s. The core structure of Kudumbashree are

neighbourhood groups (NHGs), which meet weekly. In these groups, each woman is

required to save a small amount, and the collective savings in turn provide the basis for

small loans. The groups also become a venue for other activities. In order to qualify as a

member of a neighbourhood group, the woman’s household must be considered “poor”.

In this approach, a household is considered poor, if it demonstrates four or more of the

following nine risk factors:

1. No land or less than 5 cents of land;

2. No house or dilapidated house;

3. No sanitary latrine;

4. No access to safe drinking water within 150 meters radius;

5. Women-headed household, presence of a widow, divorcee, abandoned

woman or unwed mother;

6. No regularly employed person in the family;

7. Socially disadvantaged groups such as Scheduled Caste/Tribes;

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8. Presence of mentally or physically challenged person or chronically ill

member in the family; and

9. Families without colour Television.

Women who demonstrate exceptional capacity and inclination to seek further economic

opportunities beyond thrift may then be invited to join a Self-Help or Enterprise Group

(SHG) comprising similiarly entrepreneurial women from other NHGs. The SHGs were

offered training, and advised on how to obtain loans for productive purposes. Many of

these respondents would no longer be considered poor by the above criteria, although

they had been considered poor in the recent past.

Women who are prevented from becoming NHG members because they are unable to

save even Rs 5 to 10 a week are eligible for the destitute or Ashraya scheme.

The sample was drawn from all three groups of Kudumbashree participants: NHG

members, SHG members, and Destitutes. In areas in which there was no organized

destitute scheme others of a comparable social and economic status were identified and

interviewed. Although the survey instrument could be used for women or men, in this

case 224 respondents were women. Three men were also interviewed, who were

destitute. The respondents’ ages ranged from 18 to 85.

Analysis

A number of papers are forthcoming from this study, which analyse different aspects of

the data. The papers also include analyses of focus group studies, and life histories, which

were undertaken to complement the survey data.

Demographics – an analysis of survey sample, attending in-depth to the socio-

economic characteristics of the sample population

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Measuring Agency – the main analysis of the quantitative data for the survey,

including the agency index and well-being data pertaining to each of the

domains.

Agency and Poverty – a paper exploring how to integrate agency measures into

poverty comparisons.

Qualitative Analyses of Agency in each domain: a thorough analysis of the

facilitator’s notes from each survey for each domain, with special attention

to the possibility of adaptive preferences.

Focus Group Studies: a paper documenting the definitions of agency and

autonomy that were forthcoming from focus group discussions, as well as

observations of the wider non-economic impacts of Kudumbashree

groups.

Life Histories: two in depth life histories, one of Shobana, a highly empowered

woman who has been elected Panchayat member for her ward, and

Ambili, a destitute woman with considerable inner strength.

REFERENCES

Alkire, S. (2002). Valuing Freedoms. Sen's Capability Approach and Poverty Reduction.

New York, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Alkire, S. (2005). "Subjective quantitative studies of human agency." Social Indicators

Research 74(1): 217-60.

Alsop, R. and N. Heinsohn (2005). Measuring Empowerment in Practice: Structuring

Analysis and Framing Indicators. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper

3510.

Banuri, T. (1990). Modernization and its Discontents: A Cultural Perspective on the

Theories of Development. Dominating knowledge development, culture, and

resistance. F. Apffel-Marglin and S. A. Marglin. Oxford, Clarendon Press.

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Cernea, M. M. and World Bank (1991). Putting people first : sociological variables in

rural development. New York :, Published for the World Bank by Oxford

University Press.

Chambers, R. (1997). Whose reality counts? : putting the first last. London :,

Intermediate Technology.

Drèze, J. and A. K. Sen (2002). India, development and participation. New Delhi, New

York, Oxford University Press.

Isham, J., D. Narayan, et al. (1995). "Does Participation Improve Performance?

Establishing Causality with Subjective Data." World Bank Economic Review

9(2): 175-200.

Kabeer, N. (1999). "Resources, Agency, Achievement: Reflections on the Measurement

of Women's Empowerment." Development as Change 30(3): 435-64.

McGillivray, M. (2005). "Measuring Non-economic Well-Being Achievement." Review

of Income and Wealth 51(2): 337-64.

Narayan-Parker, D. (2000). Can anyone hear us? : voices of the poor. Washington, D.C. :,

World Bank.

Narayan-Parker, D. (2005). Measuring Empowerment: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives,

World Bank.

Sen, A. (1985). "Well-being, agency and freedom." The Journal of Philosophy

LXXXII(4): 169-221.

Sen, A. (1999). Development as Freedom. New York, Knopf.

Sen, A. (2000). "A Decade of Human Development." Journal of Human Development

1(1): 17.

Wignaraja, P. (1993). New social movements in the South : empowering the people.

London, Zed Books.

Woolcock, M. (1998). "Social capital and economic development: Toward a theoretical

synthesis and policy framework." Theory and Society 27(2): 151-208.

World Bank (2000). World development report, 2000/2001 : attacking poverty. New

York, Oxford University Press.

India

Thrissur District

Thiruvananthapuram District

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Chapter 2

A Note on Kudumbashree


with inputs from Sunny Jose and Rakhe PB13

Self Help Groups for Poverty Eradication

Neighbourhood group (NHG), established at the local neighbourhood level, comprising 10 to 20

below poverty line individuals, usually women, represents a still-micro level of participatory

development with which Kerala has experimented within the ‘democratic’ decentralisation

movement. This self-help group (SHG) proposes a production project such as a cooperative to

manufacture umbrellas, soap, sandals, candles, incense, ready-made clothing, or electrical

equipment; or a service such as a cooperative store or a teashop. Once the project is approved by

the village panchayat, financing sources are matched together: micro financing by the

participants themselves through a rotating credit association and a low-interest loan from a state

or national bank are then supplemented by the village panchayat from its decentralization funds.

Though visualised as a participatory poverty reduction approach by means of a neighbourhood

organisation of the poor, under the leadership of the local self governments, as an effective

platform for converging various anti-poverty programmes of the State and Central governments,

it should be noted, these SHGs (as well as the ward committees) in effect represent co-

operatives, and thus represent only a government-backed agency for a top-down unitary mode of

participatory development. Nevertheless, this revolutionary experiment initiated by Kerala by

the name of ‘Kudumbashree’ (family Prosperity) has attracted wide attention. Below we discuss

its significance in empowering the poor women.

Kudumbashree

The Backdrop

13 Inputs from http://www.kudumbashree.org/)

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Kudumbashree is an innovative, women centred poverty eradication programme being carried

out since 1998 and 2000 in rural and urban areas of the state respectively. The programme

derived its inspiration from two welfare schemes, such as ‘Community Based Nutrition

Programme’ and ‘Urban Basic Services for the Poor.’ These programmes, which not only

departed from the conventional welfare programmes in terms of approach but also encouraged

community participation in all the stages of management, were implemented initially in seven

wards of Alappuzha town in February 1993 and extended further to the remaining 29 wards in

1994. The implementation of Poverty Alleviation Programme with community participation in

Alappuzha won laurels from the United Nations. Alappuzha received "We the People: 50

Communities" Award initiated in commemoration of The 50th anniversary of the United

Nations. In 1994 the Community Based Nutrition Programme and Poverty Alleviation Project

(CBNP and PAP) started functioning with UNICEF assistance and participation of local

community in the entire area of Malappuram, considered the most backward district of Kerala.

Over 4000 neighbourhood groups of poor women were formed under this project and they

started mobilizing savings, which touched over Rs. 2.50 crore in a few years. They were also

able to channelise financial assistance amounting to Rs. 2 crore from the National Bank for

Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and other agencies. Around 700

neighbourhood groups were linked to various commercial banks under the Linkage Banking

Programme of the NABARD. The implementation of Government-sponsored programmes for

improving health and sanitation in Malappuram District was channelled through neighbourhood

groups.

These programmes shared many common traits ― in concept, approach, management and

activities ― in alleviating poverty. For instance, these programmes used non-conventional

indicators of poverty and thereby departed from the conventional welfare programmes in terms

of approach. Further, they used a community based organizational structure, which facilitated

the active participation of poor women in planning and management, which are rare not only in

welfare programmes of government but also, to a large extent, of non-governmental

organisations. The phenomenal success of these welfare programmes, in terms of participation,

management and outreach, gave enough impetus to extend and replicate as an effective approach

to alleviate poverty. When the state evolved a poverty eradication mission in 1998, referred to

now as Kudumbashree, it incorporated the essential features of these welfare programmes.

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Viewed in this sense, Kudumbashree is essentially an extension of those two welfare

programmes.

The Objective

The principal aim of the Kudumbashree programme, mentioned in its mission statement, is ‘to

eradicate absolute poverty in ten years,’ that is by 2007.14 The programme seems to embody the

essential elements, both protective and promotional, of social security schemes, and hence can

be viewed as a social security scheme. However, its scope and reach is far wide than any

conventional social security schemes currently underway in the state. The advantage of the

programme stems from its unique approach employed in attacking poverty. To identify the poor,

it adopts a much familiar but less-travelled route. For instance, it is widely acknowledged that

poverty has more dimensions than mere shortfall in income. However, income (or expenditure)

continues to be the overarching criterion both to identify, and to improve the condition of, the

poor. Kudumbashree uses the following nine indicators, which are referred to as risk factors, to

identify whether a household is poor or not. The risk factors are:





5. Women-headed household, presence of a widow, divorcee, abandoned woman or unwed

mother;



8. Presence of mentally or physically challenged person or chronically ill member in the

family; and


14 It must, however, be added here that the programme was implemented initially in the urban centres of selectdistricts and extended in a gradual, phased manner not only to other urban parts but also to rural parts of thedistricts. Hence, the target year, strictly speaking, would vary for different regions and districts.

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Kudumbashree carries out a baseline survey, as a first step, to identify the extent of poverty

within a locality or district. A household is considered poor, if it possesses four or more of the

above nine risk factors. The combination of any four risk factors ― 9C4 combinations ―

provides 126 possible ways of finding a poor household. Thus, viewing poverty in this way,

rather than only as a shortfall in income, gives a range of possible ways to both identify the poor

and initiate activities and address the causes and consequences of poverty. It is important,

however, to acknowledge that the above indicators may have close connection with the income

shortfall. These risk factors seem to reflect, to some extent, the capability poverty, as some of

the indicators, such as absence of sanitation, safe drinking water, employment and presence of

physical and mental disability, are manifestation of capability deprivation and in that sense lack

of human development. Therefore, addressing them fully may require more aspects than direct

income supplement to the household.

Kudumbashree – Organisational Structure

Kudumbashree, as a self-help group, employs a bottom-up approach in terms of its

organisational structure and decision-making. The lower but central base of its three-tier

organisational structure is Neighbourhood Groups (NHGs). NGH is a voluntary association of

20-40 women members, who represent poor households identified through the four risk factors,

of a neighbourhood. Area Development Society (ADS), the middle structure, is formed at the

ward level by federating 8 -10 NHGs belonging to a particular ward or area. Community

Development Society (CDS) is the crest of the structure formed, at the Panchayat, Block or

District level, by federating all ADSs.

Kudumbashree now covers 991 panchayats as well as 58 Muncipalities across Kerala. Currently,

7,848 NHGs, 616 ADSs and 58 CDSs are functioning in the urban area of the State and 64272

NHGs, 6384 ADSs, and 700 CDSs are functioning in rural areas. The largest number of

community development societies are formed in the most populated district of the state,

Malappuram. The district wise formation of neighbourhood groups, area development societies

and community development societies are given in the following Table.

Each NGH selects a five-member volunteer committee having specific responsibilities, such as

President, Secretary, Community Health Volunteer, Income Generation Activities Volunteer and

Infrastructure Volunteer. While health volunteer takes primary responsibility for assessing the

64

health needs of the neighbourhood group, the assessment of the nature and kind of income

generation activities and infrastructure facilities belongs to income generation and infrastructure

volunteers respectively. President and Secretary not only ensure the smooth functioning of the

group, in terms of regular meetings, overall assessment of needs, finalisation of activities and

their implementation and follow-up, but also serve as a medium of integration with the

concerned ADS, in which the NHG is federated. The presidents and secretaries of all the

federated NGHs constitute the general body of ADSs, which elects a governing body consisting

of a president, secretary and a five-member committee. The governing body members and

chairpersons of all the ADSs constitute the general body of CDS. The general body of CDS

elects a governing body consisting of president and a five-member committee.

Kudumbashree Organisational Structure

An important component of the Kudumbashree structure is its association with, and backing

from, local self-governments and bureaucracy both at the ADS and CDS. For instance, a ward

level monitoring and advisory committee is formed under the chairpersonship of ward member

of the local body to integrate the activities of ADSs with the local self-governments. Also,

representatives of resource persons selected from that area are nominated to the general body of

ADSs. Similarly, representatives of resource persons and officers of the local body who are

involved in implementing the poverty alleviation and women empowerment programmes are

also nominated as the members of the general body of CDS. While the Project Officer of the

5 Member

Volunteer CommitteeGoverning Body

7 Members GoverningBody

Governing Body

9 Members GoverningBody

20-40 PoorWomen

NHG

8-10NHGs

ADS

ADS CDS

Monitoring

Advisory

Committee

Monitoring

Advisory

Committee

65

Urban/Rural poverty alleviation programmes is nominated as the member secretary, other

government officials and representatives of resource persons are nominated as members of the

governing body of CDS. It also has a monitoring and advisory committee with Municipal

Chairperson or President of the Panchayat as its Chairperson and Municipal or Panchayat

Secretary as Convenor. The organisational structure is depicted in the following organogram:

Kudumbashree and Human Development

Three important aspects, which make CDS a unique programme, merit mention here. First,

contrary to the most welfare or social security schemes, the decision-making authority rests with

the elected representatives, who are poor women themselves. Therefore, it is managed fully by

the representatives of the poor rather than bureaucrats or politicians. Second, it has a dual

advantage, which no other existing welfare programme can boast of: a functional dynamism

which is found among the non-governmental organisation as well as strong interaction with, and

backing from, local self-governments and thereby gaining a legitimacy. Third, besides carrying

out its activities to address the risk factors, it also conducts regularly a range of programmes

with specific objectives, such as awareness and educational programmes on female

empowerment, training programmes on entrepreneurships, just to name two. Thus, it inculcates

not only a sense of female empowerment but also helps to gain economic independence. These

aspects make Kudumbashree a unique and rewarding programme, in which poor women become

the active and informed agents of human development and social change.

Major Features of the Programme

As we have already mentioned, Kudumbashree is a process or mission in which a number of

steps are involved, the first being the identification of poor families using a non-monetary index.

The various components of this poverty index, which we already discussed, are easily

observable and thus the question of measurement problem is ruled out altogether. The second

stage of Kudumbashree, the mobilisation of the poor, is important in fighting against the social

and economic evil poverty. This programme is mobilising the poor into an organisation, namely

the neighbourhood groups, which is working within its own specified institutional framework

including its own activities, codes of conduct, responsibilities and power.

66

Further, the neighbourhood groups formed at the grass root level are providing a social platform

for the poor women to express their concerns, discuss their problems, and for finding out better

options, which they think will be enough to improve their own living conditions. In fact, through

this greater interaction among the poor women, they will be in a position to come forward with

their own micro plans suitable to their own local conditions. These micro plans formed at the

neighbourhood group level will be integrated at the Area Development Society level to form a

mini plan. Further various mini plans prepared by the Area Development Societies will be

integrated to form a CDS plan at the local government level. In fact, this CDS plan become the

anti poverty sub plan of the village panchayat or Muncipality, for which one third of the total

development resources of the local government is set aside. Thus according to the Government

of Kerala Website ‘CDS system has the right of voice, the power of choice and the entitlement

of action that is real empowerment’.

Another noteworthy impact of the programme is the setting up of women bank through the

development of credit and thrift societies. As already mentioned, in the weekly meetings of the

neighbourhood groups the meagre savings of the poor women will be collected and recycled

through the sanction of loans. Thus this programme inculcated the habit of saving among the

poor women. Further, it increased the poor women’s accessibility to small loans, which is very

important for smoothening the consumption. The self-respect, self-reliance and feeling of unity

have also gone up among the poor women of Kerala.

Yet another feature of the Kudumbashree programme is the setting up of micro enterprises using

local resources as well as skills. Various commercial as well as co-operative banks are extending

loans to Kudumbashree groups for starting productive activity. The authorities are arranging

some training programmes for the women for upgrading their skills as well as for introducing

them to new areas where the local demand is high. Thus the programme aims at combining the

local demand with local resources as well as skills and thus eradicating poverty through a better

integration of the local economy.

The Kudumbashree programme by mobilising as well as providing a social as well as economic

platform is teaching the poor women the lesson of self-reliance. Since economic self-reliance

needs skills, resources and awareness about the market situation, an indirect process of learning

is also taking place through the groups. In micro groups, women are the decision-makers as well

as beneficiaries, which may help the women to shape their own destiny or having say in matters

67

affecting their own lives. Further, the awareness building regarding education, health, nutritious

food etc are also very important for the overall welfare of the family.

Another advantage of this programme is that it organised the entire poor in the economy through

its three tier organisational structure. Currently the organisational base of CDS has been used by

different departments for implementing different projects or programmes funded by the State as

well as the Centre government. CDS’s involvement in the solid waste management in the urban

areas is worth mentioning, because this has been a unsolved problem for several years. Further

through its networks both vertical as well as horizontal, Kudumbashree has increased the social

capital of the poor, which has the potential to boost the development momentum.

Achievements

This section tries to document some of the achievements of Kudumbashree programme in

quantitative terms. First of all, in Kerala the Kudumbashree programme covering the entire rural

area in the State has so far formed 163426 NHGs, 15288 ADS and 999 CDS (Government of

Kerala 2007: 362). In fact, this organisational base is now working as a platform for

implementing several government sponsored poverty eradication programmes. These

community based organizations, with a coverage of 3183529 families, mobilized a sum of Rs.

719.23 crores as thrift fund and disbursed credit to the tune of Rs. 1825 crores to its members

(ibid.). Obviously, this is an indication of the development of saving habits among the poor

women on the one hand and on the other this also indicates the increased accessibility of poor

women to small loans.15 The repayment rate in the Kudumbashree groups is almost 100 percent.

Another major achievement of the Kudumbashree programme is evident in the 25,000 vibrant

individual micro enterprises and 1000 group enterprises, with minimum 10 women in each

group, functioning in the state (Government of Kerala Website). Obviously, this shows the

15 Some of the measures announced in this year’s Union budget will go a considerable way instrengthening the system of dispensing credit by micro-finance institutions (MFIs) inconjunction with self-help groups (SHGs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Thereis indeed a welcome recognition in the Finance Minister's speech of the role MFIs have playedin catering to the credit needs of the poorer sections of rural society. The Government hopes toenhance the beneficial role of the MFIs as an intermediary between banks and rural borrowers.Commercial banks will be allowed to appoint MFIs as their "banking correspondents" forproviding a variety of services on their behalf. That will vastly increase their reach and removesome of the intractable rigidities that have stood in the way of the spread of rural banking.

68

development of entrepreneurial skills among the poor women. Further, it also implies the

development of managerial skills, productive skills and marketing skills, which are important for

the women to take decisions affecting their own productive activity and lives. On infrastructure

development front too Kudumbashree has made remarkable achievements. In Kerala, 36,617

houses and 34,679 toilets for the urban poor and 21907 houses and 20409 toilets for the rural

poor have come up with the initiative and resources of the Community Development Societies

(Government of Kerala Website).

Weak Spots

The most striking weak point of the Kudumbashree programme is that out of 151406 neighbour

hood groups formed across the different districts of Kerala, only 1000 groups and 25000

individuals are able to run viable micro enterprises. This fact raises the important question of

why certain groups are functioning well while others are not provided the identical

organisational as well as institutional framework for all. All the groups are collecting the meagre

savings of their members and have access to easy bank loans and they have more or less the

same codes of conduct among the group members. However, there are differences owing to the

local set up in which the group is operating, initial endowment of the members of the group like

higher educational qualifications, other artisans skills, connections to the mainstream social

networks, previous experience, effectiveness of local government intervention with the group

activities in the local area etc. Are these factors responsible for the differences in the

functioning of the groups? Separate study on this issue is needed to correct the loopholes of the

existing system.

Another major criticism raised against the self help groups in general and Kudumbashree groups

in particular is that it will not help the poorest of the poor to come out of poverty. This

programme is asking the poor women to help themselves, though an additional help will be

extended by the state. In this process of self help many women belonging to the poorest of the

poor families will be kept out of the entire system due to the inability to provide weekly savings,

which is a prerequisite for getting membership in a group.

APPENDIX

(from http://www.kudumbashree.org/)

69

Poverty Indices in connection with the Kudumbasree concept:

(1) The first poverty index of the Alappuzha Model (1992-93)

A Family Having

Substandard house or hut.

No access to sanitary latrines.

No access to safe drinking water.

Family having children below 5 years of age.

Illiterate adult member.

Family getting barely 2 meals a day or less.

Family having alcoholics or drug addict.

Family having one or no earning member.

Socially disadvantaged groups.

Any family having 4 or more factors is classified as a family at risk.

(2) Poverty Index - Urban Areas (2000)

The Poverty Index was modified for the urban areas based on the feed back from the field.

A Family Having

Less than 5 cents of Land / No Land

Dilapidated House / No house

No Sanitary Latrine

No access to safe drinking water within 150 meters

Women headed household

No regular employed person in the family

Socially Disadvantaged Groups SC/ST

Mentally retarded / Disabled / Chronically ill member in the family

Families without colour TV


70

(3) Poverty Index - Rural Areas

The Poverty Index used in the rural areas has been modified to include the relevant factor

applicable to rural areas.

A Family Having

No Land /Less than 10 cents of Land

No house/Dilapidated House

No Sanitary Latrine

No access to safe drinking water within 300 meters

Women headed house hold/ Presence of a widow, divorcee / abandoned lady / unwed

mother

No regularly employed person in the family

Socially Disadvantaged Groups (SC/ST)

Presence of Mentally or physically challenged person / Chronically ill member in the

family

Families with an illiterate adult member


(4) Poverty Index applicable for Asraya families

The DIRM (Destitute Identification, Rehabilitation and Monitoring) Project also called the

Asraya programme makes use of a two-stage identification process. The Asraya beneficiary

should get a score of more than 7 on the 9-point index, and in the second stage should have at

least one of the following factors.

No landed property to create dwelling place (living in poromboke land, forest land, side

bunds of canal and paddy fields etc)

Spending the nighttime in public places, streets or in the verandas of shops for sleeping.

Families led by unwed mothers, single parent or those separated women living in distress

Families led by young widows whom are economically poor or having women who had

passed the age of marriage and remains unmarried.

Families having members who are subjected to severe, chronic and incurable diseases or

physically and mentally challenged.

71

Families having no healthy member to win bread for the family

Beggars who resort beggary as a vocation.

Women subjected to atrocities

(5) Index that was used for identifying the beneficiaries of the Social Security

Scheme

The Health insurance scheme planned as a part of the social security scheme was intended to

benefit all poor families from the NHG network. As many families were able to improve their

living conditions, they were able to reduce their vulnerability based on the index to scores below

Rural Areas Urban Areas

1. No Land / Less than 10 cents of land 1. No Land / Less than 5 cents of land

2.No House/ Living in dilapidated

house2. No House/ Living in dilapidated house

3.No drinking water facilities within

300 meter3.

No drinking water facilities within 150

meter

4. No Sanitary Toilet 4. No Sanitary Toilet

5.

No employment to any person in the

family (Employment for less than 10

days a month)

5.

No employment to any person in the

family (Employment for less than 10

days a month)

6.

Women headed family / widow /

abandoned women / presence of

unwed mother in the family

6.

Women headed family / widow /

abandoned women/ presence of unwed

mother in the family

7.

Presence of physically/Mentally

challenged/chronically ill member in

the family

7.

Presence of physically / Mentally

challenged / chronically ill member in

the family

8. Family belonging to SC/ST 8. Family belonging to SC/ST

9.Presence of an adult illiterate

member9. Family having no colour Television

72

four. But they were still susceptible to causes of poverty, hence to identify the real needy people

the index was modified.

A family which has 3 risk factors including one from among the risk indices of 6,7,8 is a

family at risk.

A family which has only two risk factors out of the risk indices 6,7,8 also is a family at

risk.

All ST families who have no government employees other than an anganwadi worker /

helper, last grade servants in government offices are also families at risk.

REFERENCE

Government of Kerala (2007), Economic Review 2006, State Planning Board,

Thiruvananthapuram

73

Chapter 3

Measuring Women’s Agency in Kerala:

Demographic Characteristics of the Sample

Vijayamohanan Pillai N.

Introduction

The present study focuses on agency. In particular, it explores a novel measure of agency.

However, it does so using a deliberately diverse purposively selected sample. For that reason,

before delving into the analysis of the agency measure, it is necessary to consider by way of

introduction the main characteristics of the sample itself, and thus to understand the respondents

whose agency is the focus of our scrutiny in later papers, and whose lives form the central subject

of our qualitative investigations.

This paper, then, presents an exhaustive analysis of the sample characteristics, and also presents and

analyses frequency distributions between different characteristics of the sample, The tables in this

paper prepare the reader for the subsequent analyses and also provide a resource to which the reader

can return.

Choice of Sample

The purpose of the study was to explore the measure of agency itself using qualitative and

quantitative data, not to test hypotheses for a broader population. Therefore, a random sample

was not required. Rather the sample was selected purposively to reflect socio-economic

diversity in south-central Kerala. The state can be divided into three areas, southern, central and

north, broadly conforming to the erstwhile regions of Travancore- Cochin (princely states) and

Malabar (under the British), which were merged as part of the linguistic reorganisation of the

Indian states in 1956.

South-central Kerala was chosen due to proximity and to the fact that this area itself would be

expected to have significant internal diversity because some poor women in this area are

74

considered to have relatively strong agency, while others are not. Thus it was expected that the

respondents would have a wide spectrum of agency freedom and unfreedom, which an adequate

measure could capture. Within Southern Kerala, Trivandrum district and in central Kerala,

Thrissur district were selected.16 Respondent

The survey was conducted during December 2005 and January-February 2006 in Trivandrum

and Trissur Districts of Kerala. From each District, respondents belonging to different areas,

such as urban, rural and tribal, were selected on certain qualifications to ensure variability. From

each area, a well performing and not-so-well-performing Kudumbashree units were selected,

and from each unit, active and not-so-active members were examined who varied by age and

observed confidence or agency. The Regional details are as follows:

1. Trivandrum District:

Two rural Panchayats: (i) Venganoor in Thiruvananthapuram Taluk and (ii) Vithura in

Nedumangad Taluk; and

One urban Panchayat: Thiruvananthapuram City Corporation

2. Thrissur District

Three rural Panchayats: (i) Kodakara in Mukundapuram Taluk; (ii) Thalikulam in

Chavakad Taluk; and (iii) Athirappilly in Mukundapuram Taluk; and

One urban Panchayat: Thrissur Municipal Corporation

From Vithura and Athirappilly both tribal and non-tribal Kudumbashree units were

selected.

Table 1 reports the demographic particulars of the sample Panchayats/Corporations vis-à-vis

the corresponding Districts and the State as well as the country as a whole.

16 Ideally the study would also have included a district (for instance Wynad) in the north.

75

Table 1(a): demographic Characteristics of the Sample Panchayats/Corporations

Thrissur Trivandrum

Athirappally

TalikKulam

Kodakara

Municipality District

Vithura

Venganoor City District

Kerala India

No ofHouseholds 2456 5084 6947 69138 639871 6975 8205 260535 759382 6726356 193579954Population- Total 9643 24180 30123 317526 2974232 26927 33372 1114318 3234356 31841374 1028610328

Female 4789 13041 15443 163278 1552180 13997 16920 567718 1664439 16372760 496453556

Male 4854 11139 14680 154248 1422052 12930 16452 546600 1569917 15468614 532156772Population(0 - 6 Years) 1178 2600 3144 33287 332459 2942 3801 118643 368515 3793146 163819614

Female 579 1322 1526 16304 162682 1500 1864 57770 180715 1858119 78820411

Male 599 1278 1618 16983 169777 1442 1937 60873 187800 1935027 84999203Population SC- Total 2747 4385 3910 25299 354226 2807 6203 118178 370857 3123941 166635700

SC Female 1390 2292 2063 13061 182783 1453 3198 60633 192139 1598827 80546940

SC male 1357 2093 1847 12238 171443 1354 3005 57545 178718 1525114 86088760Population ST- Total 1007 0 1 163 4826 3314 14 1622 20893 364189 84326240

ST Female 491 0 1 74 2533 1758 6 898 11003 184020 272299475

ST Male 516 0 0 89 2293 1556 8 724 9890 180169 195623056Literates -Total 6867 19767 24755 270295 2437592 20101 26825 915593 2558494 25485688 560687797

Female 3127 10429 12415 137373 1246566 9897 13244 455685 1278082 12732086 224154081

Male 3740 9338 12340 132922 1191026 10204 13581 459908 1280412 12753602 336533716

Total Workers 4625 6127 10684 103234 955300 9281 11382 368873 1047935 10283887 402234724

Female 1803 1315 2578 23123 236047 2185 2583 89609 241381 2518242 127220248

Male 2822 4812 8106 80111 719253 7096 8799 279264 806554 7765645 275014476HouselessPopulation 4 11 2 109 28

Female 0 0 0 58 12

Male 4 11 2 51 16Source: Census of India, 2001.

76

Table 1 (b): Demographic Characteristics of the Sample Panchayats/Corporations

Thrissur Trivandrum

Athirappally

Talikkulam

Kodakara

Municipality District

Vithura

Venganoor City District

Kerala India

Household size 3.9 4.8 4.3 4.6 4.6 3.9 4.1 4.3 4.3 4.7 5.3Female 1.9 2.6 2.2 2.4 2.4 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.2 2.3 2.7Male 2.0 2.2 2.1 2.2 2.2 1.9 2.0 2.1 2.1 2.4 2.6Sex Ratio 987 1171 1052 1059 1092 1083 1028 1039 1060 1058 9330 - 6 Years 967 1034 943 960 958 1040 962 949 962 960 927Proportion ofSC (%) 28.5 18.1 13.0 8.0 11.9 10.4 18.6 10.6 11.5 9.8 16.2Proportion ofST (%) 10.4 0 0.003 0.05 0.16 12.3 0.04 0.15 0.65 1.1 8.2Literacy (%) 81.1 91.6 91.8 95.1 92.3 83.8 90.7 92.0 89.3 90.9 64.8Female (%) 74.3 89.0 89.2 93.5 89.7 79.2 88.0 89.4 86.1 93.5 49.4Male (%) 87.9 94.7 94.5 96.8 95.1 88.8 93.6 94.7 92.6 88.3 81.8WorkParticipation(%) 48.0 25.3 35.5 32.5 32.1 34.5 34.1 33.1 32.4 32.3 39.1Female (%) 37.6 10.1 16.7 14.2 15.2 15.6 15.3 15.8 14.5 15.4 25.6Male (%) 58.1 43.2 55.2 51.9 50.6 54.9 53.5 51.1 51.4 50.2 51.7

Source: Estimated from the above.

From each area, we chose three types of respondent groups: Destitute, Neighbourhood Groups,

that is, Kudumbashree units, and Self-Help or Enterprise groups. Table 2 reports the area-wise

and group-wise distribution of respondents. We can summarise the Table as follows:

77

Table 2: Distribution of Respondents across Areas and Groups

Respondent GroupsType ofarea

Panchayat/Municipality/City Corporation

Destitute NHGEnterprise

Group TotalUrban Thiruvananthapuram 6 6 10 22

Thrissur 0 12 8 20Urban Total 6 18 18 42

Rural Thiruvananthapuram DistrictVenganoor 6 24 10 40Vithura 3 12 5 20Total 9 36 15 60

Rural Thrissur DistrictAthirappally 6 17 6 29Kodakara 5 13 8 26Thalikkulam 6 12 10 28Total 17 42 24 83

Rural Total26 78 39 143

Tribal Thiruvananthapuram DistrictVithura 3 12 5 20

Tribal Thrissur DistrictAthirappally 6 12 4 22

Tribal Total9 24 9 42

1. Thiruvananthapuram District: 102.

(a) Rural Panchayats: 60 –

(i) Venganoor: 40; and (ii) Vithura: 20;

(b) Urban Panchayat:

Thiruvananthapuram City Corporation: 22;

(c) Tribal: Vithura: 20.

2. Thrissur District: 125.

(a) Rural Panchayats: 83 –

(i) Kodakara: 26; (ii) Thalikulam: 28; and (iii) Athirappally: 29;

(b) Urban Panchayat:

Thrissur Municipal Corporation: 20;

(c) Tribal: Athirappally: 22.

78

Table 3 also gives the number of respondents area-wise in the two Districts: we have 102

respondents in Thiruvananthapuram District – 22 urban, 60 rural and 20 tribal respondents; and

125 respondents from Thrissur District – 20 urban, 83 rural and 22 tribal respondents. In total,

we have 42 urban, 143 rural and 42 tribal respondents in the sample.

Now the question is: given the two district samples, can we pool them and analyse the results as

if from a homogeneous population? Do the area types differ across Districts? The statistical test

results are shown below.

Table 1: Area-wise Selection of Respondents

District Total

Type of area Thiruvana

nthapuram Thrissur

Urban 22 20 42

Rural 60 83 143

Tribal 20 22 42

Total 102 125 227

Chi-Square Tests and Symmetric Measures

Value df Significance

Pearson Chi-Square 1.576 2 0.455

Likelihood Ratio 1.572 2 0.456

Cramer's V 0.083 0.455

Contingency Coefficient 0.083 0.455

The chi-square test measures the discrepancy between the observed cell counts and what would

be expected if the rows and columns were unrelated. The two-sided asymptotic significance of

the chi-square statistic is much greater than 0.05, so it's safe to say that the differences are due to

chance variation, which implies that area types are identical across Districts. That is, ‘District’-

specific characteristics do not matter across different areas – as may be expected of Kerala: the

two samples need not show region-specific differences. The other related tests also confirm this.

79

Table 4 presents the group-wise distribution of respondents across areas. In all, we have 41

destitute, 120 NHG and 66 enterprise group respondents from the three types of area. Do these

respondent groups differ across area types? Again the answer is in the negative;

Table 4: Respondent Groups vs. Type of area

Destitute/NHG/Enterprise TotalType of area

Destitute NHG Enterprise Group

Urban 6 18 18 42

Rural 26 78 39 143

Tribal 9 24 9 42

Total 41 120 66 227



Pearson Chi-Square 5.362 4 0.252

Likelihood Ratio 5.160 4 0.271

Cramer's V 0.109 0.252


there is no statistically significant relationship between destitute/NHG/enterprise group members

and type of region: regional specificities do not appear to surface through the respondent

characteristics.

Table 5 reports the regional and group-wise distribution of the respondents in each of the two

Districts: In Thiruvananthapuram, we have 18 destitute, 54 NHG and 30 Enterprise group

respondents, while in Thrissur, the sample includes 23 Destitute, 66 NHG and 36 Enterprise

Group members. And again the statistical question on regional variations and the same negation:

we see no region-specificities working through the respondent group characteristics within each

District also. Hence we look into the total sample, as if taken from the same population, and in

what follows, region-specific characteristics are not considered.

80

Table 5: Respondent Groups vs. District and Type of Area

Destitute/NHG/Enterprise

District Type of area Destitute NHG Enterprise Group Total

Urban 6 6 10 22

Rural 9 36 15 60

Thiruvananthapuram

Tribal 3 12 5 20

Total 18 54 30 102

Thrissur

Urban 0 12 8 20

Rural 17 42 24 83

Tribal 6 12 4 22

Total 23 66 36 125


DISTRICT Value df Significance

Thiruvananthapuram Pearson Chi-Square 7.418 4 0.115

Cramer's V 0.191 0.115


Thrissur Pearson Chi-Square 6.835 4 0.145

Cramer's V 0.165 0.145


Demographic and social-economic characteristics of the respondents

Now we turn to the demographic and social-economic characteristics of the respondents.

Gender and Age

As Kudumbashree is a project focused on women’s well-being, all our respondents are female

except for 3 male respondents (Table 6). More than 85 % of the respondents belong to the age

group above 25 and below 61, with a minimum age of 18 (one respondent) and a maximum age

81

of 85 (one respondent) (Table 7). About 36% are in the age group of 26 to 35, while nearly 60%

are aged up to 40 years. The mean age of all the respondents is 40.31 years, with a little lower

median value: the age distribution appears a little positively skewed, with long right tails and a

little leptokurtic, with longer tails than those of a normal distribution. To test that the distribution

is skewed, find the ratio of skewness (and kurtosis) value to its standard error; that is, reject the

null hypothesis that the distribution is symmetric if the ratio is less than – 2 or greater than +2.

Here the ratio is +6.28 for skewness (and +3.9 for kurtosis), so the hypothesis that the

distribution is normal is rejected.

Table 6: Gender of the Respondents by Groups

GENDER TotalDestitute/NHG/ Enterprise

Female Male

Destitute 38 3 41

NHG 120 0 120

Enterprise Group 66 0 66

Total 224 3 227

Table 7: Gender and age of the Respondents

Gender Total

Age class (Years)

Female Male

18 to 20 2 1 3

21 to 25 11 0 11

26 to 30 44 0 44

31 to 35 38 0 38

36 to 40 36 0 36

41 to 45 30 0 30

46 to 50 25 0 25

51 to 60 24 1 25

61 to 70 9 1 10

71 to 80 2 0 2

81 to 85 3 0 3

Total 224 3 227

82

Descriptive Measures

Age of the Respondents (Years) Statistic Std. Error

Mean 40.31 0.830

Median 38.00

Variance 156.276

Std. Deviation 12.501

Minimum 18

Maximum 85

Range 67

Interquartile Range 17.00

Skewness 1.017 0.162

Kurtosis 1.256 0.322

Household Size

Coming to the HH size, we have met in the sample 11 respondents who were living alone, and

one HH with 11 members. The average (Median = Mode) HH size is 4, found in 73 HHs; the

Table 8: Number of household members

Number of HH members Frequency Percent

1 11 4.8

2 23 10.1

3 44 19.4

4 73 32.2

5 35 15.4

6 24 10.6

7 7 3.1

8 5 2.2

9 4 1.8

11 1 0.4

Total 227 100.0

83

mean is a bit higher, and the distribution appears a little positively skewed and more peaked than

the normal curve (Table 8). Note that the distribution of HH size of the sample may be roughly

divided into three almost equal parts; the first one-third includes HHs having 3 or less number of

members and the next one-third houses HHs of size of 4, while the last part, HHs of 5 or more

members.

Number of household members Statistic Std. Error

Mean 4.12 0.113

Median 4.00

Variance 2.896


Minimum 1

Maximum 11

Range 10




Marital Status

Table 9 reports the marital status of the respondents: nearly 70 % of the respondents (157 out of

227) are married, while 21 (about 9%) are unmarried. The remaining 49 (about 21.5%) are

unmarried. Thus we have a set of sample respondents of varied life experiences.

Table 9: Marital Status of the Respondents by Destitute/NHG/Enterprise Group

Marital Status Destitute/NHG/Enterprise Total


Married 12 93 52 157

Unmarried 9 7 5 21

Separated 5 7 5 17

Widowed 14 13 4 31

Divorced 1 0 0 1

Total 41 120 66 227

84

Housing particulars

About 65% (147) of the respondents live in their own house (Table 10). Note that about 61% of

the destitute respondents (25 out of 41) do have own house; it should be pointed out that some of

them have been provided with housing under the Ashraya scheme, The destitute Identification,

Rehabilitation and Monitoring Project, formulated by the Kerala state Poverty Eradication

Mission. Out of the 3 male destitute respondents, only one owns a house (Table 11).

Table 10: Ownership of house by Respondent Groups

Destitute/NHG/Enterprise Own house Total

Yes No

Destitute 25 16 41

NHG 80 40 120


Total 147 80 227

Table 11: House Ownership vs, gender

GENDER TotalOwn house

Female Male

Yes 146 1 147

No 78 2 80

Total 224 3 227

Housing condition in terms of the roof and wall is a rough indicator of the HH’s economic

status; we have information on these also. About 54% (123) of the houses are tiled indicating

‘not-so-bad’ condition, and 22% are in good condition (concrete); the remaining 54 houses may

be considered in poor condition (Table 12). Also note that only 27% (40)

85

Table 12: Roof of the House by Respondent Groups

Construction - Roof Total

Destitute/NHG/En

terprise

Concrete Tile

Sheet of

tin/Asbestos

Thatched/

Grass

Destitute 10 17 4 10 41

NHG 25 68 2 25 120

Enterprise

Group15 38 6 7 66

Total 50 123 12 42 227

Table 13: Ownership of House vs. House roof

Construction - Roof TotalOwn

house

Concrete Tile

Sheet of

tin/Asbestos

Thatched

/Grass

Yes 39 68 9 31 147

No 11 55 3 11 80

Total 50 123 12 42 227

of the own houses are poor in terms of roof condition, and the remaining have either concrete or

tiled roof (Table 13). Similarly, about 76 % (172) of the houses have walls that are in good

condition, of which 104 (60%) are own houses (Tables 14 and 15). 75% (171)

Table 14: Wall of the House by Respondent Groups

Construction - Wall TotalDestitue/NHG/Enterp

rise

Brick/stone/Cement

Thatched

/Bamboo Mud

Destitute 27 3 11 41

NHG 89 16 15 120

Enterprise Group 56 3 7 66

Total 172 22 33 227

86

Table 15: Ownership of House vs. House Wall

Construction - Wall Total

Own house

Brick/stone/Cement

Thatched

/Bamboo Mud

Yes 104 15 28 147

No 68 7 5 80

Total 172 22 33 227

of the houses are also electrified, of which 67% (104) are own houses (Tables 16 and 17). In

terms of drinking water availability, half of the houses are well-settled: about 51%

Table 16: Electrified House by Respondent Groups

Electrified House TotalDestitute/NHG/Enter

prise

Yes No

Destitute 20 21 41

NHG 91 29 120


Total 171 56 227

Table 17: Ownership of House vs. House electrification

Electrified TotalOwn house

Yes No

Yes 114 33 147

No 57 23 80

Total 171 56 227

(117) households are able to have water source within the house premises; that is, having either

public water connection or own well/tank/bore well (Table 18). Out of these about 70% (81)

are own house (Table 19).

87

Table 18: Water Source by Respondent Groups

Water Source

Destitute/NHG/

Enterprise

Public

water

connection

Public

tap

Own well/

tank/ bore

well

Others'

well/ tank/

bore well

Others

(Panchayat pond

or well and

natural sources)

Total

Destitute 1 8 12 13 7 41

NHG 16 12 43 26 23 120

Enterprise

Group9 3 36 11 7 66

Total 26 23 91 50 37 227

Table 19: House Ownership vs. Drinking Water Source

Water Source

Own house

Public

water

connection

Public

tap

Own well/

tank/ bore

well

Others'

well/ tank/

bore well

Others

(Panchayat pond

or well and

natural sources)

Total

Yes 19 12 62 31 23 147

No 7 11 29 19 14 80

Total 26 23 91 50 37 227

Most of these HHs also have adequate sanitation facilities: about 24% (54) however lack this

basic facility (Table 20). 31 of the respondents having own house also come under this group

(Table 21).

88

Table 20: Sanitation facilities by Respondent Groups

Sanitation TotalDestitute/NHG/Enterprise

Yes No

Destitute 19 22 41

NHG 92 28 120


Total 173 54 227

Table 21: House Ownership vs. sanitation facilities

Sanitation y/n TotalOwn house

Yes No

Yes 116 31 147

No 57 23 80

Total 173 54 227

Cultivable Land ownership

In total, 56 respondents (about 25%), including 9 destitute ones, have reported to own land used

for farming; however, only 44 respondents living in own house have such additional land

(Tables 22 and 23).

Table 22: Land Ownership by Respondent Groups

Land Ownership TotalDestitute/NHG/Enterprise

Yes No

Destitute 9 32 41

NHG 26 94 120


Total 56 171 227

89

Table 23: House Ownership vs. Land Ownership

Land Ownership TotalOwn house

Yes No

Yes 44 103 147

No 12 68 80

Total 56 171 227

Religion, Caste and Educational Level

Most of the respondents (78%, or 177) are Hindus, while 42 (18.5%) belong to Christianity and

the remaining 8 to Islam (Table 24). Within these groups, the forward caste category includes 50

(22%) respondents, and the backward caste category, 93 (41%), while SC and ST

Table 24: Religion of the Respondents vs. Groups

Destitute/NHG/Enterprise TotalReligion


Hindu 35 87 55 177

Christian 4 31 7 42

Muslim 2 2 4 8

Total 41 120 66 227

Table 25: Caste of the Respondents Vs, Groups

Destitute/NHG/Enterprise TotalCaste

Category Destitute NHG Enterprise Group

Forward 4 30 16 50

Backward 14 46 33 93

SC 14 20 8 42

ST 9 24 9 42

Total 41 120 66 227

90

categories have 42 (18.5%) respondents each (Table 25). In terms of literacy, 197 (86.8%)

respondents are literate (Table 26); note that this is somewhat comparable with (though a little

less than) the State and District averages (Table 1b). Proportion of caste category-wise literates

are: Forward caste: 96%; Backward caste: 92.47%; SC: 85.71%;

Table 26: Educational Level vs. caste Category

Educational Level Caste Category Total

Forward Backward SC ST

No education 2 7 6 15 30

Literate - can just

read/write2 1 2 1 6

Lower primary (1 - 4) 4 11 8 7 30

Upper primary (5 - 7) 5 17 4 7 33

High school ( 8 - 10) 29 35 17 12 93

Plus one/plus two 5 15 1 0 21

Technical college

graduate0 1 0 0 1

Graduate 3 6 4 0 13

Total 50 93 42 42 227

and ST: 64.29%. However, in contrast to the general scenario, only a few (that is, 35, 17.8%, of

the literate) respondents have some higher education (above High Scholl/SSLC). Among the

STs as well as the destitute group, there is nobody with higher education (Tables 26 and 27); but

in the SC category, 4 (female) respondents are Graduates. There is only one Technical College

Graduate in the whole sample, belonging to the Backward caste and working in the Enterprise

group. Also note that out of the 13 Graduates, as many as 10 (77%) belong to the Enterprise

group.

91

Table 27: Educational Level vs. respondent Groups

Destitute/NHG/Enterprise TotalEducational Level


No education 13 15 2 30

Literate - can just read/write 4 2 0 6

Lower primary (1 - 4) 11 17 2 30

Upper primary (5 - 7) 6 18 9 33

High school ( 8 - 10) 7 57 29 93

Plus one/plus two 0 8 13 21

Technical college graduate 0 0 1 1

Graduate 0 3 10 13

Total 41 120 66 227



Pearson Chi-Square 73.684 14 .000

Likelihood Ratio 75.928 14 .000

Cramer's V 0.403 .000

Contingency Coefficient 0.495 .000

The statistical tests show that the two variables are not independent. Not only that the

respondent groups vary with their educational levels, but the relationship is not that weak, as

indicated by the symmetric measures (Cramer’s V and Contingency coefficient).

Activity Status

After educational level, we consider activity status of the respondents: here we consider the

following 6 groups; reported against each group is the number of respondents:

92

Number Percentage

1. Housewife 67 29.52

2. Unemployed (seeking work) 9 3.96

3. Casual employee 51 22.47

4. Self-employed 85 37.44

5. Regular employee, and 13 5.73

6. Housewife cum self-employed. 2 0.88

Note that the unemployed in the sample (those respondents seeking work while being members

of the NHG or enterprise group) are very few, about 4 %, in contrast to the actual situation in

Kerala. But if we accept the argument that most of the housewives remain so, without actively

seeking for a job, because of the particular household constraints, then the unemployment rate in

the sample might become more or less representative.

Table 28 presents the distribution of the respondents in different groups by activity status. Most

of the destitute respondents are either housewives (46.3%) or casual workers (39%), and only a

few are self-employed, while most of the NHG respondents come from these three status groups.

The majority of the Enterprise group respondents are self-employed.

Table 28: Activity Status vs. Respondent Groups

Activity Status Destitute/NHG/Enterprise Total


Housewife 19 48 0 67

Unemployed 0 8 1 9

Casual

employee16 32 3 51

Self employed 6 28 51 85

Regular

employee0 2 11 13

Housewife cum

self-employed0 2 0 2

Total 41 120 66 227

93

Chi-Square Tests

Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)



Linear-by-Linear Association 36.530 1 .000

N of Valid Cases 227

Table 29 reports on the activity status-wise education of the respondents. Most of the

housewives (47.8%) have high school education, while an almost equal proportion (46.3%)

Table 29: Educational Level vs. Activity Status

Activity Status

Educational

Level

Housewife Unemployed

Casual

employee

Self

employed

Regular

Employee

Housewife

cum self-

employed

Total

No education 8 0 19 3 0 0 30

Literate - can

just read/write3 0 3 0 0 0 6

Lower primary

(1 - 4)8 0 16 5 0 1 30

Upper primary

(5 - 7)12 0 8 12 0 1 33

High school ( 8

- 10)32 5 5 49 2 0 93

Plus one/plus

two3 3 0 11 4 0 21

Technical

college

Graduate

0 0 0 1 0 0 1

Graduate 1 1 0 4 7 0 13

Total 67 9 51 85 13 2 227

94

stand below that level, including 8 illiterates. There is no unemployed respondent nor any

regular employee below, and no casual employee above, high school level.

Primary Occupation of the Respondents

Table 30 presents the primary occupation of the respondents: we consider the following

categories along with the number of respondents in each category:

Respondents

Category Number Percentage

1. Unemployed/not able to work: 6 2.64

2. Household duty: 82 36.12

3. Agriculture (farming, labour, etc.): 8 3.52

4. Petty trade (buying and selling): 5 2.20

5. Industry ( weaving, Kerashree units, etc.): 50 22.04

6. Domestic labour: 11 4.85

7. Construction: 1 0.44

8. Services (canteen, plumbing, electrical, etc.): 23 10.13

9. Casual labour: 40 17.62

10. Others: 1 0.44

Table 30 presents the distribution of the respondents by their primary occupation vis-à-vis

education. All the casual workers have education up to high school level only, whereas for those

working in the service sector, the minimum education is upper primary school. Most of the

Graduates are either in industry or in services, with only one Graduate being a housewife. The

sole technical college graduate also is in industry. In the construction sector there is only one

respondent, with an upper primary education.

95

Table 30: Primary Occupation vs. Educational Level of the Respondents

Primary Occupation

EducationalLevel

Unem

plo

yed

/not

able

tow

ork

House

hold

duty

Agri

cult

ure

(far

mng,

laboure

r)

Pet

tytr

ade

(buyin

gan

dse

llin

g)

House

hold

indust

ry(w

eavin

g,K

eras

hre

eet

c)

Dom

esti

cla

bour

Const

ruct

ion

work

er

Ser

vic

e-

cante

enplu

mbin

g,

elec

tric

al,co

mpute

r,,et

c

Any

oth

erca

sual

laboure

rs

Oth

ers

Tota

l

No education 1 11 0 0 1 3 0 0 14 0 30

Literate - canjust read/write

0 3 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 0 6

Lower primary(1 - 4)

1 8 1 2 1 1 0 0 16 0 30

Upper primary(5 - 7)

0 14 1 1 7 3 1 3 3 0 33

High school ( 8- 10)

2 41 5 2 27 3 0 7 5 1 93

Plus one/plustwo

2 4 1 0 8 0 0 6 0 0 21

Technicalcollege graduate

0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1

Graduate0 1 0 0 5 0 0 7 0 0 13

Total 6 82 8 5 50 11 1 23 40 1 227

96





Cramer's V 0.303 .000

Contingency Coefficient 0.626 .000

Own Earnings and Income

We know Kudumbashree units help most of the member womenfolk earn a living, and now we

turn to the respondents’ own monthly earnings. Out of the 227 respondents, 66 (29.1%) have not

reported any earnings of their own. Others’ monthly earnings range

Table 31: Own earnings (monthly)

Monthly Earnings (Rs.) Frequency Percent

Rs 50 to 250 21 9.3

Rs 250 to 500 54 23.8

Rs 500 to 750 5 2.2

Rs 750 to 1000 39 17.2

Rs 1000 to 1500 11 4.8

Rs 1500 to 2000 7 3.1

Rs 2500 to 3000 20 8.8

Rs 3000 to 4000 2 0.9

Rs 4000 to 5000 2 0.9

Total 161 70.9

Non-earning 66 29.1

Total 227 100.0

97

from Rs. 50 to Rs. 5000, with a mean of Rs. 1076 (table 30). The median income is much below

the mean, and the income distribution, as elsewhere, is highly positively skewed. Also note that

the variance is very high. More than half of the respondents (52.5%) receive an earning up to Rs.

1000 a month and only 4 (nearly 2%), above Rs. 3000.

Monthly Earnings (Rs.) Statistic Std. Error

Mean (Rs.) 1076.05 79.727

Median (Rs.) 775.00

Variance 1029746.7


Coefficient of variation (%) 94.30

Minimum 50

Maximum 5000

Range 4950




Coming to household income, 6 destitute respondents have not reported any income, living at

the mercy of their relatives and neighbours, while one destitute reported earning Rs 25 a month

(Table 31). 33% (75) of the respondents have a monthly income up to Rs. 1000, and 67% (152),

up to Rs. 2000, while one has Rs. 20,000. Mean monthly HH income is Rs. 2425 and is above

the median; expectedly, the income distribution is highly positively skewed and widely

dispersed.

98

Table 32: Household Income (monthly)

Frequency Percent

0 6 2.6

Rs 25 1 0.4

Rs 200 to 250 2 0.9

Rs 250 to 500 25 11.0

Rs 500 to 750 10 4.4

Rs 750 to 1000 37 16.3

Rs 1000 to 1500 28 12.3

Rs 1500 to 2000 49 21.6

Rs 2000 to 2500 11 4.8

Rs 2500 to 3000 23 10.1

Rs 3000 to 4000 16 7.0

Rs 4000 to 5000 12 5.3

Rs 5000 to 10000 6 2.6

Rs 10000 to 20000 1 0.4

Total 227 100.0

Monthly HH income (Rs.) Statistic Std. ErrorMean (Rs.) 2425.12 164.653Median (Rs.) 2000.00Variance 4391935.7Std. Deviation 2095.695Coefficient of variation (%) 86.42Minimum 25Maximum 20000Range 19975Interquartile Range 2000.00Skewness 4.271 0.191Kurtosis 30.862 0.379

99

Conclusion

As the above descriptions indicate, the sample has achieved its aim of diversity, in terms of age,

region, economic status, educational level, housing conditions, and so on. The respondents to

this survey have a wide range of social, economic, and geographic conditions. Thus if their

agency has matured in different domains of their lives – a question to which we will turn to next

– it will have done so in very diverse soils.

100

Chapter 4

Measuring Agency:

Testing a new indicator in Kerala17

Sabina Alkire and Valery Chirkov

The centrality of action, and particularly action by poor persons to confront situations of serious

deprivation, has led many working on poverty reduction to recognise the importance of

introducing concerns of autonomy, agency, empowerment, self-direction, and self-determination

into poverty measurement and analyses.18 The emphasis on agency builds upon previous studies

highlighting the importance of participation and mobilisation both because of their evident

intrinsic value to communities19 as well as their instrumental contribution to more effective and

sustained activities.20 It also builds upon the legacy of research on women’s empowerment

across countries.21

Recently, a number of studies have focused on the difficult but vital problem of measuring

empowerment.22 Both Alsop and Heinsohn, and Narayan et al, consider empowerment to be

comprised of two sub-components (see Figure 1). The first are opportunities that convey

information on institutional possibilities open to a person or a community, using data on access,

service provision, and so on. The second is agency. At the individual level, agency is an

assessment of “what a person can do in line with his or her conception of the good.”23 Alsop and

Heinsohn define agency as “an actor’s ability to make meaningful choices – that is, the actor is

able to envisage and decide on options.”24

17 Acknowledge: Afsan Bhadalia for research assistance… Alsop, Holland, Ryan, Deci, Chirkov for comments…18 Alkire 2005, Alsop and Heinsohn 2005, McGillivray 2005, Narayan-Parker 2005 inter alia19 Sen 1985, Banuri 1990, Cernea and World Bank 1991, Wignaraja 1993, Chambers 1997, Sen 1999, Narayan-Parker 2000, Sen 2000, Alkire 2002, Drèze and Sen 200220 Isham, Narayan and Pritchett 1995, Woolcock 1998, World Bank 200021 Kabeer 1999,22 Alsop and Heinsohn 2005, Narayan-Parker 200523Sen 1985: 20624 Alsop and Heinsohn 2005 p 2

101

A g e n c y

O p p o r tu n i tyS tru c tu r e

D e g r e e o fE m p o w e r m e n t

D e v e lo p m e n tO u tc o m e s

Figure 1: Agency, Opportunity, and Empowerment (Alsop and Heinsohn 2005)

The studies of empowerment are motivated by the myriad of experiences of poor persons, and

also, conceptually, by the normative human development and capability approach that has been

developed by Amartya Sen among many others. Sen argues that agency – a person’s ability to

act on behalf of what matters to her or him – is at once intrinsically valuable and also a driver of

poverty reduction. Drèze and Sen describe their approach to analysing India’s development as an

approach “which puts human agency (rather than organizations such as markets or governments)

at the centre of the stage.” (2002: 6). Other aspects of Drèze and Sen’s studies focus on

opportunity structures and instrumental freedoms, but here we concentrate on agency.

Given both the conceptual and normative appeal of agency, as well as its resonance with

practical experience, it would seem appropriate to scrutinise empirical measures of agency, as

well as to undertake qualitative and participatory analyses of it. This paper focuses on

quantitative measure, but in no way intends to marginalise other approaches; indeed the study

itself employed qualitative and participatory techniques in order to deepen our analysis and

understanding of participants experiences of, and conceptions of, agency. Agency measure

might be analysed on their own; they might also be integrated into poverty comparisons. Alkire

(2005) has argued that agency measures for various domains should be considered alongside

poverty indicators for the respective domains, and indeed proposed that such measures could

empirically represent, in a limited way, people’s capabilities or freedom to achieve valuable

beings and doings.

However there is a paucity of indicators for agency at the individual level. Some use asset

indicators to measure agency – for example, skills and literacy to measure human assets, and

social capital measures to indicate social assets, and so on. Alsop and Heinsohn (2005) identify

102

such indicators that are present in international survey instruments such as the Living Standards

Measurement Survey (LSMS) as well as various Social Capital measurement surveys (reprinted

as Table 1 below); they also develop a survey instrument for agency in several domains. Other

commonly used indicators such as parents’ education, income earnings of the individual herself,

and subjective reports of the respondent. The problem is that most of these indicators do not

measure agency directly. Some indicators of assets – such as educational level achieved or group

membership – measure what Sen might call achieved functionings, meaning what people have

been able to be or do.

Other indicators – such as ownership of land or tools – measure assets as resources that people

command. But resources may not translate into agency in the same way for different individuals.

For example, consider two persons who own the same amount of land and set of agricultural

tools. One really wants to leave agriculture and play the guitar in the city. The other truly has

farming in her blood and hopes to live and die on the land with the smell of meadow grass on

the wind. These two might be equal when it comes to tool ownership. However their agency –

their ability to advance goals they value and have reason to value – is quite different. It may be

severely limited for the would-be rock star, who must stay on the farm perhaps out of a sense of

duty to his parents, or because he is unable to travel to the city. On the other hand, the happy

farmer might be able to travel to the city, even to see a concert if she wishes – but she has no

desire at all to leap on stage and try her hand. Thus her agency might be considerably greater

than the agency of the sad rock-star farmer, although their tool ownership and land ownership

are the same.

103

Table 1: Available Indicators of Agency

Asset base Indicator Existing sources/

instruments

Psychological

assets

Self-perceived exclusion from

community activities

Level of interaction/sociability with

people from different social groups

Capacity to envisage change, to

aspire

IQMSC – section 5

IQMSC – section 5

IQMSC – section 6

Informational

assets

Journey time to nearest working post

office

Journey time to nearest working

telephone

Frequency of radio listening

Frequency of television watching

Frequency of newspaper reading

Passable road access to house (by

periods of time)

Perceived changes in access to

information

Completed education level

IQMSC – section 4

IQMSC – section 4

IQMSC – section 4

IQMSC – section 4

IQMSC – section 4

IQMSC – section 4

IQMSC – section 4

SCAT Household

Questionnaire – section 2

Organizational

assets

Membership of organizations

Effectiveness of group leadership

Influence in selection of group

leaders

Level of diversity of group

membership

IQMSC – section 1

IQMSC – section 1

IQMSC – section 1

IQMSC – section 1

Material assets Land ownership

Tool ownership

LSMS – economic

activities module

LSMS – economic

104

Ownership of durable goods

Type of housing

activities module

LSMS – economic

activities module

SCAT Household

Questionnaire –

section 2

Financial

assets

Employment history

Level of indebtedness

Sources of credit

Household expenses

Food expenditure

Occupation

LSMS – economic

activities module

LSMS – economic

activities module

LSMS – economic

activities module

LSMS – housing module

LSMS – food

expenditures module

SCAT Household

Questionnaire –

section 2

Human assets Literacy levels

Numeracy levels

Health status

LSMS – education

module

LSMS – education

module

LSMS – health module

© Alsop and Heinsohn 2005

Note: IQMSC – Integrated Questionnaire for the Measurement of Social Capital;

LSMS – Living Standards Measurement Survey; SCAT – Social Capital Assessment Tool

Given the possible weakness of current indicators of agency, it could be valuable to develop a

more direct measure of agency. Such a measure could be useful first of all in ascertaining

whether the other agency measures are adequate or not. Furthermore, if they were not, it might

provide a tool by which other hypotheses regarding the instrumental importance of agency for

poverty reduction, or the extent to which and domains in which certain activities increase agency

105

– which could be useful for monitoring and evaluating the many projects that aim to increase

people’s ‘empowerment’.

The Proposed Agency or Autonomy Measure

The present study revised and field-tested a new direct measure of agency. This drew upon, and

simplified, the measure of autonomy developed by psychologists Richard Ryan, Ed Deci, Valery

Chirkov, and others working in Self Determination Theory. This indicator was chosen,

following a survey of potential measures, for two reasons. First, it studies agency not as a global

uniform capacity of a person, but with respect to different domains of well-being or poverty.

This is important because a person might be disempowered in the work force, unable to vote, yet

able to decide on her children’s level of education, able to make health decisions on behalf of

herself and other family members, and able to move around in the community as she wishes.

The domains in which individuals can and cannot exert agency are important to grasp. Second,

this measure approaches agency as cross-culturally important ability of persons’ to advance

states or activities they value. In Sen’s account of agency a person’s values guide and shape the

goals she advances – this is important to stress because some approaches to agency look at a

person’s power to effect change, without any regards for their values. Furthermore, in this

measure agency is a kind of freedom that is valued in individualistic and collectivist cultures

alike – which is important as most indicators of agency are correlated with individualism.25

According to the SDT formulation, a person is autonomous when his or her behaviour is

experienced as willingly enacted and when he or she fully endorses the actions in which he or

she is engaged and/or the values expressed by them. People are therefore most autonomous

when they act in accord with their authentic interests or integrated values and desires (Deci &

Ryan 1985, 2000; Ryan 1995). SDT contrasts autonomy with heteronomy, ‘in which one’s

actions are experienced as controlled by forces that are phenomenally alien to the self, or that

compels one to behave in specific ways regardless of one’s values or interests’ (Chirkov, Ryan

et al. 2003) page 98). Again, this contrast coheres with the concept of agency for which we seek

a measure. An agent is “someone who acts and brings about change.”26 The opposite of a person

with agency is someone who is forced, oppressed, or passive.

25 Chirkov, Ryan, Kim and Kaplan 200326 Sen 1999: 19

106

The conceptual and operational definitions of the four levels of actions regulation on the

continuum form heteronomy to autonomy are presented in table1.

To determine autonomy, a survey asks respondents whether they engage in certain practices

related to children’s education, to respondent’s employment, house hold duties, to health-related

decision making, mobility opportunities, and the perception of group empowerment.

Respondents are then asked to rate each of four possible reasons why they felt or believed or

engaged in the practice, from a low number not at all because of this reason; to a high number

completely because of this reason. In simple terms, Reason 1, called External regulation,

establishes to what extent the person felt coerced or forced to act (by another person, or by force

of circumstances); Reason 2 called Introjected regulation, the extent to which others’ opinions

and expectations accompanied by the avoidance of feeling guilt or shame influenced her choice.

Reason 3 called Identified regulation establishes whether she herself valued it as an important

practice, and Reason 4, called Integrated regulation, whether her thoughts on the matter were

integrated with her wider thinking about her own life.

In many activities, several or even all possible reasons are present in varying degrees. For

example, in considering why academics do research, one might detect all four of these reasons to

be present in varying extents. To some extent a researcher could be required to undertake

research for considerations of income or grant or tenure – if these could not be obtained by other

means – and would be punished for not doing so (External)); to some extent researchers also

moderate the quality and topics of their research such that they will receive approbation and

respect of their peers and to avoid scorn (Introjection). Many also value the research as an

important endeavour which, for example, may be useful for their community– (Identification).

Finally, the research may be developed in order to contribute to a large project – the reduction of

poverty for example – which researchers’ have deliberately chosen as a long-term commitment

that coheres with their wider social and moral values (Integration).

Ryan and Deci Chirkov et al aggregate the four responses into a weighted index that represents

the ‘Relative Autonomy Index’, which was used in this study as a person’s agency measure

corresponding to the focal domain or practice.

2*Integrated + Identified - Intojected – 2*External = Relative Autonomy Index (RAI)

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It is called a “relative” autonomy index because it incorporates all possible levels of autonomy

and weights autonomous regulations relative to heteronomous ones.

is sensitive to context. That is, the index incorporates, and is sensitive to, women’s own values

and self-understandings. In this way, the index will be expected to reflect to some extent the

“adaptive” preferences. While this might seem to compromise the index, in our view it conveys

important information. For in a situation in which the agency might seem low viewed from one

perspective, in fact, given the culture and the women’s self-understanding it might be ‘as good

as possible.’ It realises all the potential of a situation. In theory, one could, in addition, employ

a “fixed scale” method to measure autonomy or agency. In this case enumerators would rank a

women’s agency in comparison with a fixed definition and scale of agency in that domain

(according to a transparent definition that can be scrutinized, criticised, and changed). For

example, “high” agency with respect to mobility would be defined as “a woman who feels that

she can go anywhere she wishes”. Other questions in the survey (such as the question on

mobility, educational attainment) capture this to some extent; however it might be possible to

focus the ranking on agency itself rather than on a functioning related to agency.27 Such a

subjective ranking would be relatively easy for enumerators to judge if they were familiar with

the wide variety of Indian contexts and developed a transparent scale together; it might or might

not be difficult for respondents to do because their experiences, and thus their understandings of

each level, could differ. Both kinds of information are valuable, but the Relative Autonomy

Index provides critical information about the agency that women value. Furthermore, as Chirkov

et al demonstrated, comparisons with Relative Autonomy Indices can be accomplished across

countries and contexts by using a covariance structure analysis test.28 Thus we focus only on

relative autonomy – or what Sen might call “positionally objective autonomy” in this study.29

27 For example, in terms of agency in the domain of group participation, a fixed scale might be:0: persons are docile, passive, think all is determined by fate, etc.1: people come together infrequently, slightly aware of process2: a few members take leadership; others follow a path of change3: people become aware of one kind of decision they can make (savings, or hygiene, or literacy, or an agricultural input)4: people widely show self-confidence, and offer more ideas5: people know they can take initiatives to address diverse interests (which they choose), and stand on own feet

(Alkire, 1997, mimeo)28 Little 199729 Sen 1993

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Adaptations made

The survey instrument was designed initially during a workshop involving all researchers and

enumerators as well as Kudumbashree staff. It was translated into Malayalam, which was

spoken by all respondents, by this team. Back translation was accomplished by a Harvard

graduate student from Kerala who was fluent in written and spoken Malayalam as it was her

native language. The survey was piloted with at least two researchers present at each interview,

and both the questions and the questionnaire and translations were revised several times in light

of input from pilot surveys as well as participatory focus group discussions and comments from

respondents and observations of the survey team members. Copies of the pilot survey were sent

to external researchers as well for comment.

Domains:

The agency question was formulated for each of six domains: Education, Employment,

Household Duties, Health, Mobility, and Group Participation. This set of domains were chosen

through intensive discussion of the survey team and Kudumbashree staff in India and El

Salvador, and revised during the pilot studies (when Health and Group Participation were

added). They include categories proposed by similar studies of empowerment, as well as

categories used in the recent Kerala Human Development Report, and some categories are

relevant to the Kudumbashree definitions of poverty.

For each domain, questions were designed to capture the well-being of the respondent in that

domain. Certain agency questions were used directly from the Alsop-Heinsohn questionnaire for

the purpose of comparison. Standard demographic variables for this region were collected, as

well as information required to construct a socio-economic index appropriate to the local

conditions. Finally, certain more global questions regarding self-understandings of agency were

added, based on the World Values Survey. The final questionnaire appears as Appendix One.

Box One, below, reprints the sample question for the domain of education.

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Table 2: Sample Agency question: Education

Now I am going to ask you some questions about your experience of sending your

children to school. I am now going to describe possible reasons why your children go

(went) to school and ask you to rank how well each fits with your own reasons. [Show

card, Enumerator: if the person did not send children to school you need to adjust the

questions below to reflect their answer, as suggested in the parentheses Someone else

insisted that my children stay at home…]

1. External Pressure. Someone else (husband, family, law) insisted that my children go

to school and study (stay at home). OR I sent them school because of the midday meal or

other benefits.

How well does this reason describe your experience? [Show card]

not at all true not very true somewhat true completely true

4.6 1 2 3 4

2. Others’ Opinions. I sent my children to school so those around me would approve of

me and respect me.



4.7 1 2 3 4

3. I think it is important. I sent my children to school because I personally believed that

it was important and valuable for them to receive an education.



4.8 1 2 3 4

4. I deeply and freely support this. I thought about various educational possibilities for

my children and I value the level of education they have.



4.9 1 2 3 4

110

The pilot and survey were administered by enumerators from the area who were fluent in

Malayalam. In the pilot period enumerators were actively engaged in the process of improving

survey design such that it was easy to use, clear, and meaningful for respondents. Enumerators

also used best practices in terms of working with Kudumbashree to gain introductions to

participants, wearing simple clothing, seeking to put the respondents at ease and listening

attentively and perceptively to their responses. In addition to filling out the questionnaire itself,

following each interview, the facilitator herself wrote detailed comments regarding the

respondent’s apparent agency with respect to each of the six domains, and noted her own

subjective cardinal ranking of the degree of agency evinced in each domain. In addition to the

survey work, the same enumerators carried out focus group discussions, and in-depth interviews.

This created both an in-depth understanding of the concepts and sparked interest in the study.

In the process of developing a survey instrument for destitute, poor, and recently poor

respondents, several adaptations were made to the SDT autonomy measures. First, the

applicability of each of the four reasons was rated on a four-point rather than a five-point scale

to avoid giving a ‘middle’ value which people would tend to select. Second, for some surveys a

fifth reason of “no control” was added because that reflected the reality of some respondents.

Third, the way that the question was asked in some cases was two-stage: participants first

identified whether a motivation was more accurate or more inaccurate; they then would clarify if

it was “completely true” or “partly true” etc. Fourth, simple explanations were used to animate

respondents and encourage a clear understanding of the measure. Fifth, at the close of each

interview the facilitators or enumerators made qualitative notes on the respondent’s agency with

respect to each domain. Furthermore, facilitators themselves ranked the agency or autonomy of

each participant. Examples of these will be provided in an appendix and these data are also

being analysed separately.

Survey Respondents

The Kerala survey covered 227 respondents (a similar survey is underway in El Salvador). As

the purpose of the study was to explore the measure of agency itself using qualitative and

quantitative data, not to test hypotheses for a broader population, randomization was not

required. Rather the sample was selected purposively to reflect socio-economic diversity in

southern Kerala. The state can be divided into three areas, southern, central and north, broadly

111

conforming to the regions of Travancore-Cochin (princely states) and Malabar (under the

British), which were merged as part of the linguistic reorganisation of the Indian states in 1956.

Southern Kerala was chosen because of the diversity of expected agency experiences. Some

poor women in this area are considered to have relatively strong autonomy – and others do not.

Thus it seemed that the respondents would demonstrate a wide spectrum of agency freedom and

unfreedom, which an adequate measure could capture. Within Southern Kerala, Trivandrum

district and in central Kerala, Thrissur district were selected. Ideally the study would also have

included a district (for instance Wynad) in the north as well to increase diversity of respondents

both culturally and with respect to experiences of, and conceptions of, agency and autonomy.

In Trivandrum, the study covered Venganoor and Vithura Panchayats, as well as Trivandrum

city. Venganoor is considered a strong panchayat, and has been operating NHGs since 1999.

This panchayat has 15 Wards (a ward in Kerala roughly corresponds to a village in other parts of

India.) Vithura is weaker and includes tribal groups, two of which were included in this study.

In Trissur, the study covered Kodakkara, Thalikkulam, and Athirapelly panchayats, as well as

Trissur city. These districts were chosen because they had a variety of climactic areas, from

costal to mountainous, and included significant tribal populations. Thalikkulam also included a

smaller urban area. Furthermore the enumerators were familiar with these areas.

To obtain access to a diverse sample of respondents from all areas, a partnership was

orchestrated with Kudumbashree. Kudumbashree is an innovative, women’s poverty eradication

programme of the Government of Kerala which has worked in Kerala since the 1990s. The core

structure of Kudumbashree are neighbourhood groups (NHGs), which meet weekly. In these

groups, each woman is required to save a small amount, and the collective savings in turn

provide the basis for small loans. The groups also become a venue for other activities. In order

to qualify as a member of a neighbourhood group, the woman’s household must be considered

“poor”. In this approach, a household is considered poor, if it demonstrates four or more of the

following nine risk factors:




112


14. Women-headed household, presence of a widow, divorcee, abandoned woman or unwed

mother;



17. Presence of mentally or physically challenged person or chronically ill member in the

family; and



opportunities beyond thrift may then be invited to join a Self-Help or Enterprise Group (SHG)

comprising similiarly entrepreneurial women from other NHGs. The SHGs were offered

training, and advised on how to obtain loans for productive purposes. Many of these respondents

would no longer be considered poor by the above criteria, although they had been considered

poor in the recent past. Women who are prevented from becoming NHG members because they

are unable to save even 5 to 10 Rs a week are eligible for the destitute or Ashraya scheme.

The sample was drawn from all three groups of Kudumbashree participants: NHG members,

SHG members, and Destitutes. In areas in which there was no organized destitute scheme others

of a comparable social and economic status were identified and interviewed. Although the

survey instrument could be used for women or men, in this case 224 respondents were women.

Three men were also interviewed, who were destitute. The respondents ages ranged from 18 to

85.

Results

NOTE: The present analysis has been undertaken with the full sample of valid responses for each

exercise; future analyses will exclude the male respondents.

Both external and internal validity tests were conducted both on the individual elements of the

agency index, as well as on the computed index itself. As will be apparent, the sample size

varies for different domains. In the case of education, some unmarried women had no children

and were unable to imagine the extent of agency they would be able to exert on their children’s

education so did not respond. Also, some elderly women did not have children, so the question

113

was not asked lest it be painful, which generated non-responses. Agency with respect to

employment could only be identified by respondents that were in fact employed, which reduced

the sample size to 172.

1. Internal Validity Test

A first test conducted on the data aimed to verify the internal validity of the data by checking

whether the two variables indicating low agency (external regulation and introjected regulation)

were more related to one another than to the variables indicating positive agency (identification

and integration).

External (Coerced) Introjected (Influenced) Identified (Valuable)Integrated Integrated)

If the variables constitute a continuum, then their correlation pattern should follow the simplex

structure: the closest on the continuum variables should correlate stronger than the more distant.

It will be noted that some domains ask questions about “no control”: employment, household

decision-making, mobility, and health. In these domains, it seemed important to distinguish

between women who were being forcibly coerced into a certain behavioural pattern by another

person, from women who simply had to undertake certain activities because of force of

circumstances. For example, a single female head of household naturally must work to provide

for her family and must make all household decisions. This is not because anyone forces her, but

because circumstances require it. Her agency – and the barriers to fuller agency – may be quite

different from a woman in an abusive marriage who is not permitted to work (or is forced to

work) by her husband. However, in terms of the Relative Autonomy Index, the ‘no control’

variable did not fit along the continuum as the left-most point. Therefore, the RAI was computed

without it, and it is analysed separately.

Tables 1.1 to 1.6 found in Annexe 1 provide the results for each of the six domains. In the case

of education, household duties, health, mobility, and group participation, the Pearson

114

correlations, all appear in the predicted direction, with like variables being positively correlated

with one another, and unlike variables being negatively correlated or uncorrelated. In

employment introjected is positively correlated with both identified and integrated motivations,

where as the expected direction of relationship would be negative. The three discrepancies will

be discussed in the respective analysis of each domain.

Tables 1.1 to 1.6: Internal Validity Tests among the four types of regulation.

1.1. Education Domain (N=206) (Integrated regulation confusing for respondents, because they

don’t have options to consider, that is why Identified regulation happen to be more representative of

the autonomous regulation.)

Education

External

Education

Introjected

Education

Identified

Education

Integrated

Education

External

1 .30** -.52** -.10

Education

Introjected

1 -.17* .02

Education

Identified

1 .15*

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

Education Relative Autonomy Index (EdRAI) X = 7.48 (1.97) N = 206.

115

1.2. Employment Domain (N=172) (The Introjected regulation includes wording

related to seek people’s respect and this determine its relations to Identification (I

personally value it) and Integration (Consider various options and values what I do).

Correlations

Employment

External

Employment

Introjected

Employment

Identified

Employment

Integrated

Employment External 1 .00 -.08 -.03

Employment Introjected 1 .05 .30**

Employment Identified 1 .35**



Employment RAI X=6.99 (1.86) N=172.

1.3. Household duties Domain (N=223)

Correlations

HH Empower

External

HH Empower

Introjected

HH Empower

Identified

HH Empower

Integrated

HH Empower

External

1 .20** .01 -.13+

HH Empower

Introjected

1 -.02 -.01

HH Empower

Identified

1 .29**


+ Correlation is significant at the .10 level (2-tailed)

Household RAI X=7.23 (2.23), N=223.

116

1.4. Mobility Domain (N=225)

Correlations

Mobility

Empower

External

Mobility Empower

Introjected

Mobility

Empower

Identified

Mobility Empower

Integrated

Mobility Empower

External

1 .37** -.35** -.32**

Mobility Empower

Introjected

1 -.23** -.28**

Mobility Empower

Identified

1 .39**


Mobility RAI = X=1.85 (4.76), N=225.

1.5. Health care Domain

Correlations

Health

External

Health

Introjection

Health

Identification

Health

Integrated

Health Decision External 1 .17** -.18** -.11

Health Decision Introjected 1 -.11 .08

Health Decision

Identification

1 .33**


Health Care RAI X = 5.30 (2.97), N=227.

117

1.6. Group Participation Domain (N=206).

Correlations

Group Empower

External

Group Empower

Introjected

Group Empower

Identification

Group Empower

Integration

Group Empower

External

1 .68** -.10 -.03

Group Empower

Introjected

1 -.07 -.20**

Group Empower

Identification

1 .35**


Group Participation RAI X = 3.93(3.88), N=206.

2. Correlations with the Interviewers’ rating of agency or empowerment

The second validity test probes to what extent the agency indicator here tracks the subjective

ranking by survey enumerators’ of the participant’s empowerment in each of the six domains.

That is, at the end of the 45-minute questionnaire, having listened carefully to the participants’

descriptions of their own circumstances and in most cases observed their home environment,

survey enumerators immediately upon completion of the interview filled out a further one page

sheet (see Appendix One, last page). In this sheet they made notes of their recollections of

participants’ agency in each of the six domain. They also provided a ranking from 15, which

described their assessments of participants’ autonomy. As is evident, the word ‘empowerment’

is used, but in contrast to the definition as used by Alsop, Narayan et al, empowerment here is

defined in the same way as agency. This was because the term empowerment was more familiar.

The scale enumerators developed was the following.

5 = Supernatural, heroic empowerment

4 = Fully empowered

118

3 = Moderately empowered

2 = Somewhat empowered

1 = Disempowered

“Empowered is defined as being able to act on behalf of what

matters to you – what you value.”

It might be suspected that subjective data – particularly when provided by enumerators who

have only spoken with a participant for 45 minutes – would be terribly error-prone and would

vary significantly among different individual enumerators. Yet as Isham, Narayan, and Pritchett

point out, such cardinalized subjective assessments regularly are given considerable authority –

and not unreasonably so:

When [sheep], figure skaters, or bodybuilders compete, judges assign cardinal scores to

subjective criteria: quality of coat for [sheep]; artistic impression for figure skaters; and

muscle tone for bodybuilders. Grades for academic papers are another familiar example: a

professor’s subjective evaluation of a humanities paper is given a cardinal score. In each

case, these subjectively assigned scores are added, averaged, and tabulated in ways only

appropriate to cardinal data. This means that judging requires training to achieve this level

of intersubjective agreement. For instance, judges of livestock contests are occasionally

judged on the degree to which their subjective judgments conform to those of established

judges.’ (Isham, Narayan and Pritchett) 1995.

In the present case, the enumerators were all provided with training in the use of the ranking

criteria. Furthermore, their rankings were informed by the questionnaire and interaction. They

also tended to be highly motivated.

The results show a striking resemblance between the enumerator’s single ranking, and the RAI.

They also relate to the four regulations that constitute the RAI. Participant could be motivated to

do certain activity by various reasons, but only autonomously motivated actions represent

person’s empowerment. Thus, it is logical to expect that the numerators’ rating of participants’

empowerment should be negatively correlated to External and Introjected regulations and

positively to the other two forms of regulation. For example, the direction of correlation between

119

the enumerator’s rank and the extrinsic and introjected variable are negative, and positive with

the identified and integrated (as would be predicted), in education, household duties, mobility,

health, and group participation Correlations with the Relative Autonomy were significant to the

0.5 level group participation and significant to the 0.1 level for education, employment,

household duties, mobility, and health.

2. Correlations with the interviewers’ rating of empowerment.

2.1. Education Domain (N=206)

Numerator’s Rating

Education Empower External -.35**

Education Empower Introjected -.25**

Education Empower Identified .29**

Education Empower Integrated .23**

Education RAI .43**



2.2. Employment Domain


Employment External -.24**

Employment Introjected .06

Employment Identified .20**

Employment Integrated .30**

Employment RAI .35**



120

2.3. Household duties Domain


HH Empower External -.08

HH Empower Introjected -.18

HH Empower Identified .10

HH Empower Integrated .11

HHRAI .18**


2.4. Mobility Domain


Mobility Empower External -.43**

Mobility Empower Introjected -.26**

Mobility Empower Identified .34**

Mobility Empower Integrated .30**

MBRAI .48**


2.5. Health care Domain


Health Decision External -.27**

Health Decision Introjected -.21**

Health Decision Identified .26**

Health Decision Integrated .28**

HLRAI .41**


121

2.6. Group Participation Domain


Group Empower External -.07

Group Empower Opinion -.04

Group Empower Important .16*

Group Empower Freely .20**

Group RAI .14*



3. Intercorrelations between the RAIs

A third test simply studied the correlation between the Relative Autonomy Indices for the

various domains, in order to map the spatial relationships between them and detect any clusters.

The data provide the pattern described in Figure 2 below.

Fig. 2. Two clusters of the RAI indices (no men, NA excluded from each domain,

N = 166

EDRAIHHRAI

HLRAI

.20**

.22**

EMPLR

GRRAI

MBRAI

.13+

.16**

.33**

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Three things are interesting about this pattern. First, employment, mobility, and group

participation all relate to agency that is exerted in the public space – in the marketplace, and in

society. Education, health care, and household duties all refer to agency that is exerted within the

family and domestic or private arena. Another interesting feature – which was also apparent in

the focus group discussions with Kudumbashree participants – is that the Kudumbashree groups

from which many respondents were drawn functioned, primarily, to increase women’s agency in

the three external spaces: group, mobility, employment (and others that lay outside these three

domains such as the ability to negotiate with public institutions such as banks, elections, and so

on). It is a question worth exploring whether different interventions are appropriate in order to

augment agency in the more private domains. Third, education and mobility appear to be

somewhat more central than the other domains, being positively and significantly correlated to

two domains. Such relationships can be better probed in the qualitative work.

External Validation: Education

The next series of validity tests considers the relationship between the agency variables and the

relative autonomy index, and at least four questions. First, we used one indicator that is

commonly used to represent agency in that domain. Second, we compared the agency within

each of the six domains to three over-arching questions taken from the World Value Survey that

probed people’s perceptions of agency.

In the case of education, the common indicator of agency is level of education achieved, which

was scored, in this case, from 0 to 4. The correlations between level of education and agency

with respect to children’s education is clear, with the extrinsic and introjected relations being

negative, as would be expected, and the identified and integrated being positive. The RAI for

education is highly significant and positive. Furthermore, the RAI is negatively correlated for

the question “Can people like you change things in your community?” which is the appropriate

direction as in this variable “1” represents the highest score, and 5 the lowest. It is strongly

correlated with the nine-step Cantril ladder of empowerment. It is significantly associated with

views on fate. Furthermore the direction of correlation for the subcomponents of the RAI are all

in the right direction. Thus we can say that the Education Agency Index behaves exactly as

would be expected. This however leaves open several questions which we will return to later,

such as the value-added of a direct agency indicator over the commonly-available indicator of

years of education.

123

Table: Correlation of RAI and motivational regulations in Education domain with education and

training index, and other empowerment questions. (N = 206).

Education plus

Training Index

Can people like you

change things in your

community?

Nine-step

ladder of

power

Everything is predetermined

by fate vs. people shape

their fate

Education

RAI

.24** -.26** .19** .25**

Education

External

-.26** .23** -.16* -.13*

Education

Introjected

-.21** .14* -.07 -.17*

Education

Identified

.10 -.14* .16* .14*

Education

Integrated

.04 -.12+ .10 .18**



External Validation: Employment

In the case of employment, three indicators were used for purposes of comparison. One was an

activity index, in which an unemployed person is ranked as (1); housewife (2), casual employee

(3), self-employed as (4) and regularly employed as (5). The second was an asset index, which

comprised 1. whether the respondent owned their house; 2. the materials of the roof; 3. the

materials of the walls; 4. whether the house was electrified; 5. the water source; 6; whether

sanitation facilities were available and 7. whether they respondent owned cultivable land other

than the homestead. These two were also combined with the education index (above) to form a

‘socio-economic’ index, which was also used.

124

The asset or ‘economic’ index’s correlation with the EMPLRAI is highly significant;

furthermore it correlates in the expected direction with all elements of the agency index.

Significant relationships are also shown with all three of the World Value Survey indicators. The

activity index is interesting, but does not relate easily to employment which is surprising given

that it includes direct information about employment status. This might be due to the fact that

the categories included do not form a continuum, or cannot be interpreted in this direction;

alternatively, it may be that agency in the domain of employment is not a function of

employment status itself.

Table: Correlations of the Employment RAI with Economic Indices and other indicators of

agency N=170: no men, and no NA for employment domain).

Activity

Index

Economic

index

Social-

economic

index

Education

plus

Training

Index

Can people

like you

change things

in your

community?

Nine-

step

ladder

of

power

Everything is

predetermined by

fate vs. people

shape their fate

Employment

RAI

.12 .23** .23** .15* -.21** .25** .28**

Employment

External

-.03 -.01 -.07 -.11 .03 .07 -.17*

Employment

Introjected

.05 -.02 -.02 -.07 .13 -.18* -.09

Employment

Identified

-.02 .07 -.00 -.06 -.093 .21** .18*

Employment

Integrated

.18* .25** .24** .10 -.13+ .15* .15*



125

Household duties Domain

Table: Correlations of the Household duties RAI and types of regulations with other indicators

of agency and empowerment. N = 129: no men, no NA for household duties motivation and no

‘0’ for 7.2 question).

You Decide

HH

Expenditure

Activity

Index

Education

plus

Training

Index

Economic

index

Social-

economic

index

Can people

like you

change

things in

your

community?

Nine-

step

ladder

of

power

Everything is

predetermined

by fate vs.

people shape

their fate

Household

RAI

.03 -.03 .15+ .23** .15+ -.12 .16+ .16+

HH

External

-.05 .13 .01 -.10 .03 .09 -.08 .08

HH

Introjected

.12 -.01 -.24 -.07 -.14 .13 -.20* -.13

HH

Identified

-.20* .02 .22 -.07 .08 .03 .14 .17+

HH

Empower

Integrated

.10 .05 .07 .25** .17+ -.06 .05 .21*



126

Health Care Domain

Table: Correlations of the Health Care RAI and types of regulations with other indicators of

agency and empowerment. N = 102: no men and no ‘0’ for 7.2 question).

You

Decide

Health

Activity

Index

Education

plus

Training

Index

Economic

index

Social-

economic

index

Can people

like you

change things

in your

community?

Nine-

step

ladder

of

power

Everything is

predetermined

by fate vs.

people shape

their fate

Health

RAI

-.40** .28** .36** .37** .45** -.24* .23* .27**

Health

Decision

External

.27** -.27** -.30** -.34** -.40** .11 -.14 -.24*

Health

Decision

Introjected

.19+ -.11 -.32** -.21* -.28** .25** -.24* -.04

Health

Decision

Identified

-.20* .04 .01 .03 .04 -.19+ .11 .10

Health

Decision

Integrated

-.27** .10 .16 .15 .18+ -.15 .13 .16



127

Correlations of the Health RAI with Self-report status of health (N= 224)

Overall health

status

Illness during the

past two weeks

Illness during the

last year

Health RAI .13* .00 .13*

Mobility Domain

Table: Correlations of Mobility RAI and types of Regulation with the direct Mobility question

N=222, no men, no NA for mobility motivation questions.

Correlations

MOBILITY

8.1

Can people like you


community?

Nine-step

ladder of

power


by fate vs. people shape their

fate

Mobility

RAI

-.46 -.13* .20** -.09

Mobility

External

.39** .09 -.11 .06

Mobility

Introjected

.31** .12+ -.26** .16*

Mobility

Identified

-.24** -.05 .12+ -.01

Mobility

Integrated

-.31** -.10 .14* -.04



128

Group participation Domain (N=206)

Correlations

Held

Office

y/n

Can people like you


community?

Nine-step

ladder of

power


by fate vs. people shape their

fate

Group

Participation RAI

-.17* -.18** .22** .03

Group Empower

External

.19** .14* -.17* -.04

Group Empower

Introjected

.13* .15* -.15* .06

Group Empower

Identification

-.03 -.09 .18** .09

Group Empower

Integrated

.01 -.11 .14* .05



Conclusion and Next Steps:

The analyses conducted thus far indicate very strong internal and external validation for the six-

domain relative autonomy index. The strength of these findings are indeed genuinely of interest,

because the survey was undertaken as a trial, and researchers were open to either positive or

negative results.

The following could be the next steps of analysis:

1. Explore how the RAI differ among subcomponents of the sample, and in particular:

a. Age

b. Caste/tribe

c. Districts

d. Socio-economic groups

129

e. Educational levels

f. Respondents interviewed by different enumerators

2. Use regression analysis to identify the percentage of variance predicted by the RAI in

different relationships.

3. Analyse time series data to explore the sensitivity of the RAI to potential impacts.

4. Compare these results with the parallel survey data from El Salvador

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(74), pp. 217-60.

Alsop, R. and N. Heinsohn (2005) Measuring Empowerment in Practice: Structuring Analysis

and Framing Indicators. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3510.

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and Framing Indicators, The World Bank Policy Research Working Paper Series: 3510.

Banuri, T. (1990) Modernization and its Discontents: A Cultural Perspective on the Theories of

Development. Dominating knowledge development, culture, and resistance, F. Apffel-

Marglin and S. A. Marglin, (Oxford, Clarendon Press pp.

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Orientations and Well-Being, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, (84), pp.

97-110.

Drèze, J. and A. K. Sen (2002) India, development and participation, (New Delhi, New York,

Oxford University Press).

130

Isham, J., D. Narayan, et al. (1995) Does Participation Improve Performance? Establishing

Causality with Subjective Data, World Bank Economic Review, (9), pp. 175-200.

Kabeer, N. (1999) Resources, Agency, Achievement: Reflections on the Measurement of

Women's Empowerment, Development as Change, (30), pp. 435-64.

Little, T. D. (1997) Mean and Covariance Structures (MACS) Analyses of Cross-Cultural Data:

Practical and Theoretical Issues, Multivariate Behavioral Research, (32), pp. 53-76.

McGillivray, M. (2005) Measuring Non-economic Well-Being Achievement, Review of Income

and Wealth, (51), pp. 337-64.

Narayan-Parker, D. (2000) Can anyone hear us? : voices of the poor, (Washington, D.C. :,

World Bank).

Narayan-Parker, D. (2005) Measuring Empowerment: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives, World

Bank).

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2001). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic

motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68-78.

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2003). On assimilating identities to the self: A self-determination

theory perspective on internalization and integrity within cultures. In M. R. Leary & J. P.

Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity (pp. 253-272). New York: The Guilford

Press.

Sen, A. (1985) Well-being, agency and freedom, The Journal of Philosophy, (LXXXII), pp.

169-221.

Sen, A. (1993) Positional Objectivity, Philosophy and Public Affairs, (22), pp.

Sen, A. (1999) Development as Freedom, (New York, Knopf).

Sen, A. (2000) A Decade of Human Development, Journal of Human Development, (1), pp. 17.

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Zed Books).

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Oxford University Press).

131

Table 1. Conceptual and Operational Definitions of the Four Types of Behavior Regulations proposed by SDT

Type of behaviorregulation

ExternalRegulation

IntrojectedRegulation

IdentifiedRegulation

IntegratedRegulation

Conceptual definition(Ryan & Deci, 2001;Ryan & Deci, 2003)

Intentional behavior iscontrolled by externalrewards and punishmentsor the expectation of them

Behavior is controlled byego involvement; itfocuses on approval fromothers and is driven byguilt/ anxiety avoidance

Behavior is relativelyautonomous andregulated by theendorsement andconscious valuing ofself-selected goals andactivities

Behavior is autonomouslyregulated based on theintegrated sense of self anda congruent system ofvalues, goals and identities.

Operational definition- answer to thequestion: “Why doyou or would do thisbehavior?”(Chirkov et al., 2003)

Because of externalpressures: to get rewards oravoid punishments.I would engage in thisbehavior because someoneinsists on mydoing this or I expect to getsome kind of reward oravoid some punishment forbehaving this way.

To get approval or avoidguilt. I would engage inthis behavior becausepeople around me wouldapprove of me for doingso, or because I think Ishould do it. If I didn't dothis I might feel guilty,ashamed, or anxious

Because it isimportant. I wouldengage in thisbehavior because Ipersonally believe thatit is important andworthwhile to behavethis way

Because I have thoughtfullyconsidered and fully chosenthis. I have thought aboutthis behavior and fullyconsidered alternatives. Itmakes good sense to me toact this way. I feel free inchoosing and doing it, andfeel responsible for theoutcomes

Continuum ofautonomy

Complete lack of autonomy; Partial lack of autonomy Mostly autonomous High level of autonomy

132

Chapter 5

Integrating Agency into

Multidimensional Poverty Comparisons:

A Conceptual Proposal

Sabina Alkire and Sebastian Silva Leander

The following is divided into three Sections:

1: Overview of multidimensional poverty measures – considerations and issues

2: Integrating Agency into multidimensional poverty comparisons – A conceptual

proposal;

3: Integrating Agency into multidimensional poverty comparisons – A map for empirical

study.

Overview of Multidimensional Poverty Measures: considerations and issues.

In measuring multidimensional poverty we grapple with a lot of the same problems found

in the literature on traditional poverty measures, but also with a series of new problems

relating to the interrelation and interaction between the different variables. Below is a

summary of the steps we will have to go through in this process. Please also refer to the

Diagram at the end of this paper.

1. Identification

a. Relevant Dimensions: First, we need to identify the relevant dimensions

of poverty that we need to measure.

i. Identification of Dimensions: The first step in this process, is the

conceptual identification of dimensions according to some

acceptable standard. There are basically four different ways of

proceeding here:

133

- Expertise: the researcher identifies relevant dimensions on the

basis of his expertise, literature, etc. (e.g. Nussbaum, Finnis,

etc.)

- Rights-based: the dimensions are determined through some

universally acceptable standard, such as human rights

declarations, etc. (e.g. MDGs).

- Participatory: the interviewees themselves identify the

dimensions that are relvant to them.

- Empirical: let the data decide, without any a priori from the

researcher, which dimensions are relevant through some

acceptable statistical method.

ii. Identification of Variables: The second step in this process is the

empirical treatment of the data in order to arrive at an optimal

number of dimensions, which is sufficiently large to capture all the

relevant information that we want to capture and sufficiently small

to avoid problems of collinearity and multiple counting. This

problem is especially relevant in the case in which we have a lot of

different dimensions, with potential overlap.

- Factor analysis: factor analysis essentially consist in

consolidating the data so as to structure around the covariance

structures of the variables. In other words, it tries to combine

variables that are overlapping, and tries to separate out those

that are not. Consider for instance a case in which we have four

variables : school enrolment, literacy, life expectancy, HIV

prevalence. In this case, it might be possible to combine the

first two variables into a consolidated “education” variables

and the last two into a “health” variables. In practice, the

distinction will rarely be as clear-cut, and factor analysis allows

for a degree of fuzziness in the construction of indices.

134

- Cluster analysis: another possible way of doing the same thing

is cluster analysis. Cluster analysis is a non-parametric method

which looks at the similarity between variables according to

some pre-defined criteria. It then clusters together similar

variables, up to a level of aggregation to be decided by the

researcher. Because it uses a clustering technique, however, it

does not allow us to “clean” the data of inter-variable

correlations. However, it has the advantage of providing a

clearer relation between existing and consolidated variables,

which makes it easier to interpret the new variables.

- Structural Equation Models: this type of models assumes that

we are trying to measure a latent, unobservable variables,

which are affected by a number of observable factors. For

instance, “education” will be a product of schooling, income,

etc. but also health, nutrition. At the same time, “health” will

be a product of access to healthcare, but also income,

education, etc. The latent variables “health”, “education”, etc.

are thus estimated as dependent variables produces through

some form of “production” function by the independent

variables “income, access to healthcare” etc. The structural

equation format has the advantage of allowing us to consider

the structural interrelation, between observable variables, but

also between latent or dependent variables.

b. Relevant Individuals: The second step is the identification of the poor

themselves. The very concept of poverty implies setting aside a sub-group

of the population, which is deemed to be distinct from the rest according

to some criteria. While, the separation may make sense for the group as a

whole, when it comes down to the individual level, it will often be

135

difficult to determine whether a person belongs to the group or not,

depending on whether he falls on one or the other side of an arbitrarily

defined poverty line. This is all the more true when we are dealing with

multi-dimensional concepts of poverty. Several techniques have been

developed to deal with this issue:

i. Fuzzy sets theory: the fuzzy sets theory resolves the problem of the

arbitrary definition of a poverty line, by considering a range

instead of a line. There is thus a lower threshold below which

everyone will agree that an individual is poor, as well as an upper

threshold above which one cannot be considered poor. In between

those two, individuals are said to belong “more or less” to either of

the two categories, depending on whether they are closer to the

lower or upper threshold. While intuitively appealing, this method

does not really solve the problem of an arbitrary definition of

thresholds, since it still requires the researcher to determine and

upper and lower threshold.

ii. Totally fuzzy and relative: a solution to this problem has been

developed in the totally fuzzy and relative approach which

proposes to replace the arbitrary identification of upper and lower

thresholds by a statistical method based on the identification of a

number of social characteristics.

iii. Community based identification: the above mentioned methods,

attempt to solve the problem of defining arbitrary poverty lines,

without departing from the fundamental principle of objectivity of

poverty criteria (i.e. that the poor can be identified by measuring

their characteristics against some objective set of criteria). An

alternative approach is to use participatory methods, such as

community-based identification of the poor. The problem with this

approach, of course, is that it will be community specific and thus

not comparable across communities. It may, however, prove

136

interesting for inter-temporal comparisons of poverty and poverty

dynamics.

2. Measurement

Once we have decided what we are going to measure we must decide how we are

going to measure it. There is a vast technical and axiomatic literature on poverty

measurement in the unidimensional case and most of what is said there applies also to

the multidimensional case. Here we will only highlight some of the key differences or

challenges that emerge in the multidimensional case.

a. Focus: One of the necessary key axioms in poverty measurement is the

focus axiom, that is, poverty measures should only look at what happens

below the poverty line and should not be concerned with improvements or

deteriorations of living standards amongst non-poor. While this is a fairly

straightforward axiom, its practical translation to the multi-dimensional

case. Strictly, the multidimensional translation should say that “the

poverty level in dimension x is invariant to changes in x above the poverty

line and to changes in any other dimension, y, above the poverty line”.

The problem with this axiom is that different poverty dimensions are inter-

correlated, so that an individual may compensate for deprivation in one

dimension, say access to healthcare, by relying on another dimension in

which he is non-poor, say nutrition. In this case, changes in the non-poor

dimension may be relevant to the alleviation of poverty in the other

dimension (see also discussion below on substitutes vs. complements).

b. Absolute vs. Relative: In the unidimensional literature, the relative nature

of a poverty index is determined by the ratio-scale invariance condition,

which states that poverty should be invariant to changes in the

measurement scale. In the multidimensional case, this becomes more

complicated, due to the fact that poverty is measured on different scales in

different dimensions. Hence, we must add the condition that poverty

assessment in any given dimension will not be affected by scale changes

137

in other dimensions. Tsui (2002) proposes to introduce a corresponding

poverty-invariance condition for multidimensional cases, stating that the

ordinal ranking of two poverty vectors will be unchanged by changes in a

poverty line. While relative poverty measures are useful and are often used

in the unidimensional case, especially with regards to income, their

extension to the multidimensional case, where poverty is defined as

deprivation with respect to a set of concrete functionings/capabilities, is

less obvious. Illiteracy for instance, is an absolute concept: one’s person’s

illiteracy cannot be alleviated by the illiteracy of another person (see Sen’s

discussion on absolute vs. relative poverty in the capability space).

c. Weighting: finally, one additional problem that we face in the multi-

dimensional case is that of weighting different indicators. In the one-

dimensional case, the problem is not posed, or to be more precise, the

weighting of different dimensions of poverty is implicitly built-into the

income variables, through the price structure: the income measure will

automatically give more weight to more expensive items and will leave

out all together the non-marketed or un-priced goods (e.g. household work

or socialisation, self-esteem, etc.). Here, again, the problem can be

approach in a number of different ways, as in the case of identification of

dimensions:

- Expertise: the researcher sets the weights on the basis of some

arbitrary or logical justification (e.g. HDI).

- Rights-based: Certain international standards, such as the

MDGs, contain an implicit weighting structure through their

composition (8 goals subdivided into 16 targets, subdivided in

into 48 indicators).

- Participatory: the interviewees themselves identify the value

they want to attach to given dimensions. This, of course, poses

a problem of comparability and must be adapted to the purpose

of the study.

138

- Empirical: Several possibilities can be considered here. For

instance, one option is to give a higher weight to dimensions in

which fewer people are poor in order to be able to bring out the

sub-group of poorest people.

3. Aggregation

Finally, the individual measures of poverty have to be aggregated into a composite index

that will allow us to compare different poverty states across individuals and dimensions.

The question of how we choose to aggregate will depend on the nature of the analysis. If,

for instance, we are trying to compare national poverty rates (as in the human poverty

index), we may wish to aggregate first across individuals for each dimension and then

choose an appropriate weighting for the different dimensions. If, on the other hand, we

are, as here, trying to compare individual poverty levels in a community, it will be

appropriate to aggregate first across dimension, and then across individuals. Here are

some of the key issues we must consider in each of these areas when we aggregate in the

multi-dimensional context:

a. Across Dimensions

i. Union Intersection: The first issue we must determine is whether

we are going to consider poverty as in the union or in the

intersection of poverty dimensions. In brief, the question is

whether an individual must be both, say, illiterate and in poor

health in order to be considered poor, or whether we will be

considered poor if he is deprived in either of these two dimensions.

The latter definition, will, of course, be more permissive. Finally, it

is possible to imagine any combination between these two

approaches, thus enabling us to make different trade-offs between

poverty dimensions.

ii. Complement vs. Substitute: In the unidimensional case, it is proper

to adopt a permutation invariance or anonymity axiom, which

139

states, that the poverty index will be unchanged if the two

individuals below the poverty line switch place (so that the poorer

individual becomes richer and the less poor individual becomes

poorer by the same amount). In the multidimensional case, this

axiom may no longer hold, due to the intercorrelation between

dimensions. For instance, because we know that better educated

people tend, other things equal, to be more able to take care of

their health, we may be concerned if the permutation in, say health,

leads an individual who was previously illiterate but in good

health, to become both unhealthy and unable to look after his

health. This result, however, holds only in the case where the two

dimensions are substitutes for each other (as in the example). If, on

the other hand, the two dimensions are complements, the opposite

will hold. Imagine, for instance, that we are considering “access to

education” and “health”. There may be a school in your

neighbourhood, but in order to be able to benefit from it, you must

first be in good health. In this case, the permutation of “access to

education” from an individual in poor health (i.e. unable to enjoy

education) to an individual in good health may actually improve

the overall poverty level despite the fact that poverty will now be

more concentrated in one person.

b. Across Individuals

i. Cross Group Disparity: Note that the above assessment is

independent of distributional considerations. Hence, we may still

want to penalize the latter state of poverty (the one with more

concentration of poverty) on equity grounds. This questions comes

into the picture when we attempt to aggregate poverty dimensions

across individuals. At some level, all inter-individual aggregation

implies imposing a social welfare function on the data, in the sense

that any given ranking could have been achieved through a

corresponding social welfare function. Hence, whether one

140

chooses to make this explicit or not (e.g. through a social welfare

approach), it may be useful to explicitly look at the attributes of the

ranking in terms of the parameters that would enter a social

welfare function (e.g. in terms of distribution, elasticity, etc.).

ii. Dominance Comparisons: One approach that has received

increased attention recently, is the stochastic dominance approach.

This approach has the advantage of enabling us to make

assessments over the entire distribution, thus allowing us to make

assessments that are more solid than on the basis of average values

(this type of indicators will be explored further below).

Integrating Agency into Multidimensional Poverty Comparisons:

a conceptual proposal

Most of the literature on multidimensional poverty takes its conceptual direction from the

capability approach initiated by Amartya Sen and developed by many others.30 According

to Sen’s capability approach, economic and social arrangements should be evaluated in

terms of the capabilities enjoyed by those who live in them. These freedoms relate to

what people are really able to do and be – to functionings such as their ability to live a

long life (life expectancy) or to be well-nourished (nutritional status), or their ability to

go about without shame (social inclusion). Thus Sen has shifted the terms of the poverty

debate away from a reliance on income and consumption poverty measures alone, to the

consideration of multiple dimensions of people’s lives. This conceptual shift carries value

even if it proves most useful in some contexts to use income and consumption data.31

30 Chiappero Martinetti 1994, Chiappero-Martinetti 1996, Balestrino 1998, Brandolini and D'Alessio 1998,Sen 1998, Atkinson 1999, Sen 1999, Chiappero Martinetti 2000, Silber 2001, Drèze and Sen 2002, Klasenand Wink 2002, Qizilbash 2002, Atkinson 2003, Basu 2003, Burchardt 2004, Alkire 2005, Burchardt 2005,Klasen 2005, Kuklys 2005, Silber 2005 inter alia31 Sen 1997and 1999 articulate various ways that capabilities can inform poverty measurement, andspecifies that in many cases income or consumption-based measures can be improved by consideration ofother functionings.

141

However what must be recalled is that what is new in Sen’s capability approach is that it

gives a substantive weight to freedom – to people’s ability to enjoy various sets of

alternative beings and doings. But how can empirical welfare analysis assess the impact

of alternative courses of action on multiple human freedoms? However intriguing or even

compelling notions of freedom may be conceptually, all multidimensional poverty

measures fall short, by self-admission, of capturing the freedom distinctive of Sen’s

approach.32 Nor have alternative empirical methods for incorporating measures of

individual capability into multidimensional welfare economics been developed.33

Here the problem is to extrapolate from an achieved functioning set to the capability set

associated with the achieved functionings. There is no information on the counterfactual

courses of action open to person i. It is as if one was studying the actual consumption

basket of person i, without any information on the currency of transaction much less the

prices. It would not be possible to construct a budget set simply from a single information

point. Far less would it be possible to construct a budget set that included consumption

items not actually present in person i’s basket. It is for this reason that many have argued

that capability measurement is empirically impossible and have elected to set aside the

component of freedom and concentrate only functionings.

But how shall we proceed when it is not possible to identify a full set of opportunity

freedoms? In the case of Sir Henry Maine’s poor fasting Brahmin, one knows that this

Brahmin had the capability to eat but did not, and this knowledge gives the Brahmin’s

undernourishment a different interpretation than destitution. In this case one does not

actually know very much about the Brahmin’s capability set at all. One does, in this case,

know that:

a) he chooses fasting to eating during a certain time period (preferences)

32 It must be stressed from the outset that a number of authors advocate freedom and opportunity to be acentral component of welfare evaluation. See also Arneson 1989, Cohen 1989, Daniels 1990, Nozick 1974,Mill 1859, Rawls 1971, Raz 1986, Roemer 1998, 2002 and Sugden 1998 among others.33 This dearth of empirical applications led Slesnick, in his review of empirical welfare measures, to refrainfrom considering the capability approach in depth. Slesnick 1998 especially at p 2109 and 2148. See alsoAtkinson 1999.

142

b) he could eat if he wished (commodities/entitlements)

c) he has chosen not to eat (choice)

d) he is undernourished (achieved functioning)

What if we were able to identify a hypothetical situation in which we knew that, in

population I, during time period t1, an average of 2% of persons will be fasting to such an

extent that they are undernourished. We do not know which persons in population I these

may be. We also know that the remaining 98% of persons would eat if suitable food was

available. And we know that undernourishment affects 80% of persons in population I.

How could we measure whether the capabilities of the affected persons had expanded,

using an economy of information?

Functioning

Process freedom

Undernourished Nourished

Higher Agency 2% (value coherence) 80%? (value coherence)

Lower Agency 18% ?

In this situation, given that we have established that the congruity between ‘values’ and

‘functionings’ was quite high (98%), we would know that for most people we would be

able to detect the expansion in capabilities through the expansion in functionings.

This is, we know that for an additional 18% of the population, whatever their opportunity

set is, if it to include nutritious food they will consume that food and their nutritional

achieved functionings will improve accordingly. Of course a full capability measure

would include the other options that they had, but given the difficulties of that, could

elementary evaluation (evaluation only of their nutritional status disregarding their

agency or freedom) suffice in this case? Not quite, for the reasons that follow.

In the case of these non-fasting persons, although any changes in capability would be

reflected in a functionings measure, that measure would be a partial yet still not be an

143

adequate indicator of freedom. This is because even when one has the opportunity to eat

and chooses it, there is a substantive difference between eating and being forced to eat.34

If there were a severe violation of agency freedom – if one were forced to eat at gunpoint

– this could also be important to note.35 Even if we economize on information and

ignore opportunity freedom, in addition to information on the particular functioning of

interest bi', an adequate measure even of basic freedoms would require information

on serious transgressions of agency or process freedom.

Even if it were established that minimal agency had been respected, this measure would

still omit a great deal – and in particular it will not give any importance to opportunity

freedoms such as the opportunity to eat your favourite food, which may be quite

important. However it might still prove to be more accurate than extensions of consumer

surplus estimations, and may suffice for some purposes.

Thus a minimally adequate representation of basic freedoms might take the form of a

vector of ordered pairs (bi', ai) in which ai represented the autonomy (or heteronomy) of

person i with respect to their attainment of (lack of) each of the valued basic functionings

bib.36

The present survey deliberately included the information required to construct such

ordered pairs. That is, for each of the six domains, poverty data and autonomy data are

both available, hence a six-element vector might be constructed for each person, where

the elements of the vector were ordered pairs comprised of the poverty measure and the

relative autonomy index.

34 Sen 2004 discusses a parallel case (between choosing to stay home and being forced to stay home of anevening).35 Of course, one could argue that it would be incorrect to ignore further opportunity freedoms, or ignorethe diverse ways in which the functioning of nutrition could be realised. Even if one concedes that theopportunity freedom of a bowl of curds and whey exceeds the opportunity freedom of having no curds andwhey, one might also consider a gourmet buffet to hold some further desirable opportunity freedoms.36 Of course various adjustments are needed to adapt this – for example in the case of children (on whichsee Biggeri 2005).

144

Integrating Agency into Multidimensional Poverty Comparisons:

a map for empirical study

We plan to attempt several different multidimensional poverty comparisons that

incorporate agency and have solid conceptual as well as empirical foundations. These

attempts will draw data collected in Thrivananthapuram and Trissur districts of Kerala,

India in December-January 2005/6. The data cover six domains: Education, Employment,

Household Duties, Mobility, Health, and Group Participation. For each domain, one or

more points of poverty data are collected. Furthermore agency information has been

collected for each domain, and a relative agency index computed, following the

methodology of Self-Determination Theory.37

The methods we plan to use are:

Counting Approaches

Dominance Comparisons

Multidimensional Poverty Indices

Counting Approaches

A first approach to multidimensional poverty comparisons are the straightforward

“counting approaches”, used widely in applied studies.38 The first, and most common, is

the following: Having identified a set of key dimensions (in our case, the six domains),

and having established a poverty line (which may be fuzzy) the number of dimensions in

which a particular person is poor is counted and becomes the poverty score. That is, a

person who is poor in three dimensions scores 3 (or -3); a person deprived in 2

dimensions – regardless of which two they are – is scored 2 (or -2) and so on.

More formally, a simple way of you can define the poverty indicator variable for the ith

person in a set of n persons having m poverty attributes j. The variable z represents the

poverty threshold for each attribute.

37 Chirkov, Ryan, Kim and Kaplan 2003 and the references they draw on from Self-Determination Theory.See also the companion working paper in this study by Alkire and Chirkov.38 Atkinson (2003) has traced the relationships between this literature and dominance approaches.

145

= 0, otherwise. (1)

The number of poor in the multidimensional framework is given by:

Alternatively, one can count a person poor if they are poor in any dimension, or only if

they are poor in all dimensions.39

We will undertake the counting approach using two methods. First, we will establish

a (fuzzy) poverty line for each of the six domains, if necessary combine the indicators

for each domain, and compute the number of poor persons using the counting

approach as well as the intersection and union approaches. Second, we will use

agency data to moderate the poverty levels. A high agency level with respect to that

domain will augment the achievement levels, where as a low level will reduce. As

this is quite initial work, various methods of combining agency and poverty data will

be explored and reported. It then becomes possible to compare the poverty count

(using the counting, intersection, and union approaches) when poverty data alone are

used, and when the poverty and agency data both inform the analysis.

Dominance Comparisons

The second method is conceptually the most exciting but empirically the most daunting.

Building on the work of Atkinson and Foster and Shorrocks,40 Duclos, Sahn and Younger

have investigated second order dominance comparisons of bivariate poverty indices. In

introducing their approach they write:

39 Atkinson 2003

146

Rather than asking, “Is poverty lower for A than for B over all reasonable poverty

frontiers?” we ask, “What is the area of poverty frontiers over which we can be

sure that poverty is lower for A than for B?” This approach provides one useful

way to get around the need to make an arbitrary choice of ”reasonable” limits for

the range of admissible poverty frontiers.

Duclos, Shan and Younger (2002) have used these technical instruments to develop

operation tools for comparisons of bivariate poverty indices. They show that, using the

FGT poverty index, the first order dominance is given as:

0][)()(1 2

21

21 0 02211, GFdxzxzP

z z

ss

The equation defines a poverty dominance surface over which G is higher than F for all

the pairs of intersection poverty frontiers. Hence, this does not require us to compare all

possible poverty measures which are members of the class, but just the poverty

dominance surface defined by equation over which poverty rankings are robust.

Atkinson provides a very helpful assessment of dominance measures, focusing

particularly on their relationship to counting measures. He reiterates the strength of this

class of measures as being that they “identify the circumstances under which we can

make a statement of the form that “multidimensional deprivation in country A is lower

than in country B” for all deprivation measures satisfying certain general properties.”41 In

other words, it is not necessary to obtain agreement on one particular deprivation measure

in order to undertake meaningful poverty comparisons. Even in those situations in which

the dominance conditions are not satisfied, Atkinson argues, application of them allows

the analyst to isolate crucial value judgments and disagreements.

40 Atkinson 1987, Foster and Shorrocks 1988a, b. Atkinson 2002, cited here, was published as Atkinson2003.41 2003:53

147

Conceptually, dominance comparisons are tremendously attractive, for they resonate with

many of the insights of the capability approach. However the data requirements required

to calculate dominance comparisons across a significant number of domains are

substantial and exceed available data in many situations at least.

In our case, we will explore whether, rather than considering two domains of poverty

(which are the maximum that our sample size allows us to analyse), we might consider

one dimension of achieved functionings (or poverty), and the other dimension to be

agency (or autonomy). Within each of the two ‘dimensions’ we will consider the

distributions for each person of poverty in each of the six domains, and of agency in each

of the six domains (using the relative autonomy index). We will then use dominance

comparisons of one individual on the other individuals, obtaining thus a matrix of

probabilities. There are a large number of questions and hurdles to be crossed before

empiricising this work. In particular: how do the agency and poverty data for each

domain map onto one another? How can we construct the multidimensional

‘distributions’ of poverty and agency? Is it possible to compute dominance using the kind

of data that we have?

Multidimensional Poverty Indices

We have introduced the poverty indices, and discussed their conceptual strengths and

weaknesses above. In the empirical section of the paper, we will attempt to compute

several indices. It must be noted that thus far multidimensional poverty indices have been

computed with two or at most three domains, so the exercise of computing them using six

domains has research value independently of considerations of agency. The final list is to

be determined, but may include the Watts Index, the Bourguignon and Chakravarty

Indices (in their several forms), and others. Each index will be computed a) with poverty

data alone; and b) with poverty data informed by agency data for each domain. We will

explore several mechanisms by which to combine the poverty and agency data and report

the results of each. These will allow us to compare the potential value added of

148

multidimensional poverty comparisons that include agency, rather than relying on

poverty data alone.

Multidimensional Watts Index

The 1968 Watts Index was extended for use in multidimensional poverty comparisons by

Chakravarty Deutsch and Silber.42 Furthermore they computed this index using data on

income, life expectancy, and literacy available in 1994 and 2003 from the World

Development Reports. This index has the attractive features of being subgroup and factor

decomposable. It is also decomposable in a third sense: using the Shapley decomposition,

a change in poverty may be expressed as the sum of a [multidimensional] growth

component and a redistribution component.

Recall that the unidimensional Watts index is defined as

nP

PWU = (1/n) ∑ log (γ/si)

i=1

where n is the total number of individuals, np is the number of poor, γ is the (income)

poverty line and si is the income of individual i.

The multidimensional Watts index is defined by

Pw(X;Z)= 1/n ∑∑δjlog (zj/xs)

where n є N and (X; z) є M n⊗ Z are arbitrary. The multiplicative parameter δ j ≥ 0 with

some inequalities being strict. The advantages of the Watts index is that it is fairly easy

to compute and has a number of attractive axiomatic features as Chakravarty et al

42 Chakravarty, Deutsch and Silber 2005

149

describe in depth. The disadvantage is that the index does not in any way address the

problem of interaction between different dimensions; all are considered in isolation.

Bourguignon and Chakravarty Indices

Bourguignon and Chakravarty develop a multidimensional poverty measure which

specifies a ‘poverty line’ for each of multiple dimensions of poverty (which may or may

not be ‘fuzzy’). A person is considered to be ‘poor’ if she or he falls beneath one or more

of the poverty lines. The poverty lines can also, they argue, be combined and jointly

analysed.

Their measure addresses two problems. One is the problem of how to construct poverty

measures that are sensitive to changes within the population who are “poor”. Sen

identified this problem namely that normal poverty measures such as the “head count

ratio (proportion of persons with incomes less than the poverty line) and the income gap

ratio (the gap between the poverty line and average income of the poor, expressed as a

proportion of the poverty line) … are insensitive to the redistribution of income among

the poor.”43 The head count ratio also remains the same if persons already deemed poor

grow poorer.

The second problem is how to capture both monetary and non-monetary aspects of

poverty. Income is limited as an indicator of poverty because it does not capture public

goods, non-market goods, rationing, and the problems of distorted or imperfect markets.

For this reason, Bourguignon and Chakravarty conclude, “income as the sole indicator of

well-being is inappropriate and should be supplemented by other attributes or variables,

e.g., housing, literacy, life expectancy, provision of public goods and so on.”44

Multidimensionality was also advocated by the basic needs approach and, as Sen’s

43 Bourguignon and Chakravarty p 2544 Bourguignon and Chakravarty p 26

150

capability approach has argued, well-being is “intrinsically multidimensional”.45 Hence

these measures might more adequately represent deprivations of well-being.

Bourguignon and Chakravarty thus adopt a matrix of n individuals (i) each having m

attributes (j). The vector xi is the set of attributes pertaining to person i; that is to say, is

the ith row of the n x m matrix M. The attributes of each person are maintained as a

vector and not aggregated into a uni-dimensional measure.

In order to determine poverty, a poverty threshold z is set for each attribute. Thus z is a

vector of poverty thresholds pertaining to each attribute. Person i is poor with respect to

attribute j if xij < zj. In this way it is possible to identify the set of persons who are poor

with respect to each attribute.

But how does one “count” the poor? It is rather “intricate” to do so by aggregating the

sets of poor across attributes because of the issue of double-counting. Thus instead they

define the poverty indicator variable ρ, where ρ = 1 if the person i is poor with respect to

any attribute j, and ρ = 0 if the person is not poor with respect to any attribute.46

Summation of the ρ produces a “headcount” of all those who are poor in at least one

attribute. Formally:

ρ(xi ; z) = 1 if ∃ j ∈ (1, 2, . . . , m) : xij < zj and

ρ(xi ; z) = 0, otherwise.

The headcount of those who are poor in any dimension is:

H = ρ(xi; z). 47

45 Bourguignon and Chakravarty p 2646 It may be possible to transform this precise threshold into a poverty band using fuzzy set47 p 29

151

The problem with the union headcount index described above, quite evidently, is that if a

person suffers multiple deprivations, and improves in one dimension, but remains poor in

another, the H will remain constant; the same will occur of a person who is poor in one

dimension becomes impoverished with respect to others.

Thus Bourguignon and Chakravarty explore various ways to create a multidimensional

poverty index that satisfies familiar postulates48 and can be represented by a single real

number. The particular difficulties are assessing the substitutability or complementarity

of attributes (recognizing that these may vary at different depths of poverty and between

different dimensions), and addressing redistribution issues among the poor.

The first functional form for a multidimensional poverty index they propose is additive

and satisfies the conditions up to and including a OTP but not MTP. The

multidimensional poverty index of m attributes may be represented:

j

ijm

j Sij

z

xf

nzXP

j1

1);(

where Sj is the set of persons who are poor with respect to attribute j, and where fj is a

continuous, decreasing and convex function such that fj (u) = 0 for u ≥ 1.

48 Strong Focus (SF)48; Symmetry (SM), Monotonicity (MN), Continuity (CN), Principle of Population(PP), Scale Invariance (SI), and Subgroup Decomposability (SD) p 29-30. They also consider two furtherpostulates, which I will describe intuitively. The One Dimensional Transfer Principle (OTP), requires thatif there are two poor persons, one less poor than the other with respect to the attribute j, and the less-poor ofthe two gains a given amount of the attribute and the poorer of the two loses the same amount, the povertyindex should not decrease. The Multidimensional Transfer Principle (MTP) extends OTP to a matrix(following Kolm and Tsui) and argues that if a matrix X is obtained by redistributing the attributes of thepoor in matrix Y according to the bistochastic transformation then X cannot have more poverty than Y.That is because a bistochastic transformation would improve the attribute allocations of all poor individuals(note that MTP imposes proportions on the exchange of attributes). A final criterion in the case of MTP isthe Non-Decreasing Poverty Under Correlation Switch (NDCIS) postulates. If two persons are poor withrespect to food and clothing, one with more food and one with more clothing, and then they swap clothingbundles and the person with more food now has more clothing as well, poverty cannot have decreased. Theconverse is the Non-Increasing Poverty Under Correlation Switch postulate (NICIS).

152

Bourguignon and Chakravarty also extend the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke index to the

multidimensional case by setting

fj(t) = aj (1 - t) θj 0 < t < 1

where θj > 1. In this case the weight given to the attribute j in the poverty index is

established by the positive number aj. Of course a range of weights can be used to

demonstrate how the choice of weights affects the resultant index – and also to generate

discussion on the appropriate weights. Other isopoverty contours are also explored.

The paper also discusses three versions of non-additive multidimensional poverty indices

that satisfy MTP. In these, various assumptions are made about the shape of isopoverty

contours that are convex with respect to the origin.

In this case the individual poverty indicator is:

where I (u1, u2) is an increasing, continuous, quasi-concave function with I (0, 0) = 0. The

corresponding poverty index becomes:

Here, different forms of the poverty index are created by different specifications of I.

Bourgignon and Chakravarty suggest a specification derived from the CES form:

153

where f ( ) is an increasing and convex function such that f (0) = 0, and a1 and a2 are

positive weights attached to the two attributes. The power θ, in this form, represents the

elasticity of substitution between the shortfalls of the various attributes. In order to be

convex to the origin in the space of attributes, the poverty contours must be concave with

respect to the origin in the space of shortfalls, hence θ must be greater than 1.

The Bourguignon Chakravarty Index is a significant line of work – which takes seriously

the interconnection between variables (as the Watts Index, for example, does not);

however it imposes the same elasticity of substitution on all of the dimensions, which is

an implausible assumption in most situations involving three or more dimensions.

Cited References

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Research, (74), pp. 217-60.

Atkinson, A. B. (1999) The contributions of Amartya Sen to welfare economics,

Scandinavian Journal of Economics, (101), pp. 173-90.

Atkinson, A. B. (2003) Multidimensional Deprivation: Contrasting Social Welfare and

Counting Approaches, Journal of Economic Inequality, (1), pp. 51.

Balestrino, A. (1998) Counting the poor in a fuzzy way: the head-count ratio and the

monotonicity and transfer axioms, Notizie di Politeia, (14), pp. 77-86.

Basu, K. C. A. W. I. f. D. E. R. (2003) Global labor standards and local freedoms,

(Helsinki, United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics

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Brandolini, A. and G. D'Alessio (1998) Measuring Well-being in the Functioning Space,

Banco d'Italia Reseach Department.

Burchardt, T. (2004) Capabilities and Disability: the Capabilities framework and the

social model of disability, Disability and Society, (19), pp. 736-51.

Burchardt, T. (2005) Are One Man's Rags Another Man's Riches? Identifying Adaptive

Expectations using Panel Data, Social Indicators Research, (74), pp. 57-102.

Chakravarty, S. R., J. Deutsch, et al. (2005) On the watts Multidimensional Poverty

Index, Paper prepared for the International Conference on The Measurement of

Multidimensional Poverty: Theory and Evidence (International Poverty Centre,

Brasilia, 29-31 August 2005).

Chiappero-Martinetti, E. (1996) Standard of Living Evaluation Based on Sen’s

Approach: Some Methodological Questions, Politeia, (12), pp. 47-53.

Chiappero Martinetti, E. (1994) A New Approach to Evaluation of Well-being and

Poverty by Fuzzy set Theory, Giornale Degli Economisti e Annali di Economia,

pp.

Chiappero Martinetti, E. (2000) A Multidimensional Assessment of Well-Being Based on

Sen's Functioning Approach, Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Sociali, (108), pp.

207-39.

Chirkov, V., R. Ryan, et al. (2003) Differentiating Autonomy from Individaulism and

Independence: A Self-Determination Theory Perspective on Internalization of

Cultural Orientations and Well-Being, Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology, (84), pp. 97-110.

Drèze, J. and A. K. Sen (2002) India, development and participation, (New Delhi, New

York, Oxford University Press).

Klasen, S. (2005) Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction: Measurement and Policy

Issues, OECD Working Paper No. 246, pp.

Klasen, S. and C. Wink (2002) A Turning Point in Gender Bias in Mortality? An Update

on the Number of Missing Women, Population & Development Review, (28), pp.

285-312.

Kuklys, W. (2005) Amartya Sen's Capability Approach: Theoretical Insights and

Empirical Applications, (Berlin, Springer).

155

Qizilbash, M. (2002) A note on the measurement of poverty and vulnerability in the

South African context, Journal of International Development, (14), pp. 757-72.

Sen, A. (1997) On Economic Inequality, (New York, Clarendon Oxford Press).

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Journal, (108), pp. 1.

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developpement social. (Amartya Sen and the Measure of Economic Growth and

Social Development. With English summary.), Revue D'Economie du

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156

Achievement ineach domain D

Time

Multiple Dimensions orDomains (Ds)

[Fuzzy] Thresholdfor each relevantdomain or indicator.

© Alkire 2006

Interactions among Ds

Relative Wts (of Ds)

Also Required:

Aggregation acrossgroups or individuals

MultiD. Comparisons:indices/orderings

Freedom

Indicator(s) for each D

157

Chapter 6

Women’s Definitions of

Freedom and Empowerment in Kerala:

Results of Focus Groups in

Thiruvananthapuram and Thrissur

Sabina Alkire and Mridul Eapen

with Jyothi Nair and Sunitha Sukendran49

“Empowerment is when women can achieve whatever they want”

- A member, Karuna NHG, Vithura, Tribal Ward

The true experts on any activity to empower poor people are, in fact, the participants in

these activities themselves. Participatory methods have enabled researchers to tap the

analytical abilities of these participants, as well as to learn their definitions of common

concepts such as well-being, ill-being, and in the case, agency or autonomy.50 Drawing

on these methods, the present study explored the impacts of a savings and credit scheme

for Keralite women, called Kudumbashree, on their well-being. The study also explored

the participants’ understandings of concepts related to empowerment such as freedom,

autonomy, and self-confidence. This qualitative study was undertaken in order to guide,

and complement, a survey designed to measure agency in different domains of well-

being.

49 Jyothi Nair and Sunitha Sukendra facilitated the FGDs with Alkire and Eapen, and drafted the seven casestudies that form the basis of this paper. We are also grateful to Kudumbashree for facilitating the FGDs, toteam member Vijayamohanan Pillai for his input, and most of all toall of the woman participants whoseinsights we have tried to convey. Errors remain our own.50 Chambers 1995, Chambers 1997, Blackburn and Holland 1998, Holland, Blackburn and Chambers 1998,Narayan-Parker 2000, Narayan 2000, Cooke and Kothari 2001, Narayan-Parker 2005

158

About Kudumbashree

All of the groups in which focus discussions were held had been organized by

Kudumbashree. We heard about the Kudumbashree yesterday. Very briefly

Kudumbashree is a poverty eradication initiative of the Government of Kerala which has

worked to eradicate poverty among women in Kerala since the 1990s. The core structure

of Kudumbashree are neighbourhood groups (NHGs), which meet weekly. At the weekly

group meetings women deposit savings, and the collective savings in turn provide the

basis for small loans. The groups also become a venue for other activities. In order to

qualify as a member of a neighbourhood group, the woman’s household must be

considered “poor”. In this approach, a household is considered poor if it demonstrates

four or more of the following nine risk factors:





5. Women-headed household, presence of a widow, divorcee, abandoned woman or

unwed mother;



8. Presence of mentally or physically challenged person or chronically ill member in

the family; and



opportunities beyond thrift may then be invited to join a Self-Help or Enterprise Group

(SHG) comprising similarly entrepreneurial women from other NHGs. Members of

SHGs receive training, and are advised on how to obtain loans for productive purposes.

Many of these respondents would no longer be considered poor by the above criteria,

although they had been considered poor in the recent past.

159

Choice of Focus Groups

Seven Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were held in the two panchayats, Venganoor and

Vithura, in the Trivandrum district of Kerala, India. The Panchayats had been selected in

conversation with Kudumbashree because of their diversity of experiences. The same

Panchayats and NHGs contributed to a survey on agency and autonomy, which this

qualitative study accompanied and supplemented. The seven Focus Groups were selected,

again in conversation with Kudumbashree, to cover the gamut of group experiences:

some were chosen because they were weak groups in comparison with other groups;

others because they were strong. Six of the groups were the NHGs – the savings and

credit groups for poor women. One of these groups was located in a tribal ward. The

seventh group was an enterprise unit, including men, whose respondents had been

selected on the basis of their desire to engage in, and capacity for, entrepreneurial work.

While all groups did not have an income generating activity, individual women could

take loans and undertake small activities like petty trade, running tailoring/tea/vegetable

shop, firewood/dry fish/copra selling or primarily be occupied with household duties.

Methodology

The FGDs were held at the time of the weekly meeting of the group so as to maximize

participation. The research team included all of the survey team members, enabling a rich

cross-fertilization between the quantitative and qualitative exercises. Facilitators, who

were native speakers of Malayalam, insisted upon sitting upon the ground, interacted in

ways so as to ensure that quieter participants spoke, and that more dominant participants

were encouraged to share the analysis with others. The mood of the meetings was often

quite lively. Two to five researchers attended each FGD.

After introducing the team, and thanking participants for spending time with them, the

facilitator would explain that the participants were experts, and that the researchers had

come to learn from them. They would also assure participants that their answers were for

160

research purposes and would not influence Kudumbashree (and in nearly every occasion,

Kudumbashree staff were not present during the focus group discussion). Of course

biases can always be introduced, but in these and other standard ways the researchers

attempted to minimize common miscommunications and distortions in responses.

The first question was simple, and meant mainly to put the group at ease and start a

conversation: how often did the women meet, and what did they do during their meetings,

and how long had they been meeting. Then the impact assessment began. Participants

were asked to consider why they continued to attend the meetings: what benefits did they

find. When a participant named a benefit – such as receiving loans – this candidate

benefit was probed. Did others agree? How many had received loans? What were the

loans for? By these questions researchers attempted to understand the meaning that

participants attached to the benefit. Then the facilitator introduced a symbol, such as a

pen or found object, and laid it on the floor, and explained that it represented the benefit.

She then enquired whether there were other benefits. In this way, one by one, participants

would enumerate the benefits that they received – and look for found objects to

symbolise them.51 When the set was complete, and each potential benefit had a symbol

(and the group remembered what they were), then the facilitator would request

participants to rank the benefits: which was the most important to them? She would pick

up two symbols, and ask the group to decide, by discussion among themselves, which

was the more important. Careful note was taken of the discussion. She then would pick

up a third benefit, and ask where it fit in: was it higher than both the others in importance

– or the same as one – or between them – or lower than both? She then would hand the

symbol for a fourth benefit to a member, and ask the group to tell the member where to

lay the symbol: as more important, equal, in between, less, etc. This process continued

with different participants ranking benefits individually until all of the benefits had been

ranked.

In the course of this discussion, of course, many insights emerged as to the nature of the

group activity and the women’s experiences. Also, throughout the discussion, the

51 This methodology is described in detail in Ch 6 of Alkire 2002.

161

facilitators’ ears were tuned for any time that a participant mentioned the words freedom,

empowerment, or agency. After the ranking, she would find a way of asking them what

these meant. For example, in some cases ‘freedom’ was identified as a key benefit – then

she would ask further questions about the meaning of freedom. In other cases, she would

have heard somebody mention self-confidence: she would ask them what they meant.

Thus the final portion of the exercise was to try in a natural way, to guide the

conversation towards agency and empowerment and garner the women’s views and

definitions of these concepts.

At the close of the meeting, the facilitator thanked participants profusely for their time,

analysis, and generosity, and thanked the hostess for the use of her house. Often tea or

drinks were shared. The team explained, at that point, the purpose of the study was to

explore women’s agency. They also promised that the group would receive a short

Malayalam summary of the study results when these had been accomplished. In many

cases, the FGDs were followed by interviews with participants and so appointments were

made with the relevant participants at the close of the FGD.

While the methodology tried to practice the best possible approach to the community, and

to listen keenly to their insights and experiences, it is possible that the FGD findings are

biased in several ways. First, the group was gathered for Kudumbashree – a scheme

which is a vehicle for considerable service delivery to the poor, and it is possible that the

group did not in fact believe that this study was only for research purposes, so augmented

their account of benefits. That being said, as Figure 1 shows, in no case were loans (the

primary activity of NHGs) ranked as the #1 benefit of Kudumbashree – rather

cooperation, mutual help, not being shy, unity, and so on came higher. A second possible

bias is in the definitions. The words used were ‘swathanthriyam’ ( freedom), and

‘shaktikaranam’ (empowerment) and ‘sthree swathanthriyam’ ( women’s freedom). On

one occasion (only), in which freedom had not been brought into the conversation at all,

the facilitator asked directly what ‘empowerment’ [shaktikaranam] meant to the

respondents, and they didn’t know the meaning of the word, so scrambled to come up

with a definition and apologized for their lack of education, which created a distressing

162

situation all around. Furthermore, although often two different persons were taking notes

or otherwise listening to the interview, there is a danger, inevitably, of researcher bias in

what is heard and recorded. While we have attempted to minimize these distortions and

to recognize there they have entered and interpret the data accordingly their possibility, of

course, remains.

Analysis: Kudumbashree Impacts

It is interesting to see that almost all group members have conceptualized the group’s role

as being above individual interest. As Figure 1 shows, these impacts were ranked very

highly in importance. When asked about benefits from the group, the answers were in

terms of getting job /loan /income /mutual help/ cooperation/ feeling of togetherness/

greater interaction with society/ security / social respect and so on but when asked to rank

the benefits according to importance, the responses revealed an understanding of

collective strength. We can put it in the following way: a group is a resource which

enables members to have mutual help/cooperation/unity, a functioning they value. Access

to this resource results in a capability to communicate, interact with people outside the

household, negotiate bank loans, thus expanding their freedom to avail of opportunities

for generating incomes/stabilizing household consumption, which gives them greater

security. However, what we could observe in the course of our interactions with several

groups, is that the group is only an enabling resource; just the formation of a group does

not ensure group capability and individual well-being; it needs to be nurtured through

good and committed leadership. This needs to be noted.

When asked to rank various benefits from Kudumbashree, loans and financial benefits

were ranked third or fourth in all groups except for one, in which “Job” was ranked as

number one. That is, the economic and non-economic benefits were mingled, but income

rarely came first – a pattern that follows other applications of this methodology.52 For

example in one group the order of importance was: not to be shy, to be aware, mutual

52 Alkire 2002 found similar mingling in assessments of 11 Oxfam projects and 24 other NGO activities inPakistan. See also

163

help, and getting loans leading to empowerment. In another freedom was ranked first,

followed by to personality building, mutual cooperation, knowledge sharing, and finally

financial benefits leading to empowerment. Figure 1 reports the ranking of all benefits.

Figure 1

Group Area Impacts

Thanima Kovalam 1. Mutual benefit2. Freedom2. Recogition

3. Financial BenefitDial Now

Multipurpose

Group

Vazhuthacadu 1. Unity

2. Communication

2. Dignity3. Model to others

3. Income4. Security

Kuruvikad Nanpavan

Kavu

Junction

1. Job

2. Income

2. Unity

3. Sympathy

3. Self-ConfidenceSarathi Venganoor 1. freedom,

2. personality change,

3. mutual co-operation,

3. knowledge sharing

4. financial benefitsSangamam Chenenpara 1. Cooperation

2. Mutual Help3. Loans

4. Other LoansSauhrutham Vithura 1. not to be shy

2.awareness

3. mutual help4. loans

5. sympathyKaruna Vithura 1. Mutual Help

2. Group strength

3. Discussion

4. Loans

5. Cooperative society

6. Bank

These rankings might suggest that the greatest benefit of the SHGs did indeed relate to

women’s collective agency, as well as to their social capital. It would thus be interesting

to evaluate Kudumbashree units not solely on their economic impacts: the number of

loans given and repaid, or the income earned by Kudumbashree participants. Rather, this

research suggests that Kudumbashree may be directly augmenting women’s agency and

164

autonomy. If this is the case, and if indeed an increase in agency among the poor

generally leads to decreases in different dimensions of poverty, then monitoring and

evaluation of Kudumbashree activities should incorporate impacts on agency and

autonomy – perhaps by using research instruments similar to the one tested here.

Analysis: Definitions of Agency and Empowerment.

Views regarding how members perceived freedom, agency and empowerment were also

varied (Figure 2) and the gendered responses based on the one mixed FGD was revealing.

While the men linked it more to earning more, reaching a high income group and gaining

greater respect, the women talked more in terms of doing something other than only

household work, being able to achieve what they wanted, feeling less shy, more confident

and freer to move around and interact with people, and having greater awareness about

government policies, laws and individual rights. With much pleasure some women stated

that men were now intimidated at the mention of Kudumbashree and reminded them

about their weekly 4 o’ clock meetings!!

The participants’ definitions of empowerment and agency varied widely. The breadth of

their definitions lends independent evidence to a core hypothesis of this study. The

hypothesis, which was developed on the basis of considerable literature on women’s

empowerment, is that agency or empower is not a global quality of a person. Rather, the

agent experiences herself to be empowered, or able to exert agency, differently in

different domains of her life. As Alkire wrote:

[The domain-specific approach to agency] can be stated quite simply. A person

who is ‘empowered’ as a citizen because she can vote and speak in local meetings

may nonetheless be excluded from the labour market because of her gender and

low levels of education, or be abused by her husband. A domain-specific measure

of agency can distinguish between the freedom that she experiences in different

165

domains of her life, where as a ‘global’ measure of agency would conflate these

diverse measures into an aggregate that would be of less practical value.53

The descriptions below bear this distinction out because agency was usually expressed

with respect to one domain or another. In some cases, women spoke of empowerment in

the public sphere: being able to negotiate at banks and offices, to obtain papers from the

Panchayat office and so on. Other related descriptions relate to women’s confidence to

move around and visit friends and family, or the strength they obtained from group

participation. Other descriptions related to business skills, or to political participation

such as voting. It is notable, given the domains of this survey, that the subjects of health

did not arise; education only indirectly. Mobility, household decision-making, group

participation, and to some extent employment did, however, come out as part of the self-

understandings of women.

Another question was whether, indeed, women valued agency at all. It has been

hypothesised, for example, that in different cultures – such as the Kerala culture which

still deeply values the family and community units – agency might not be valued. Women

might instead value a situation in which others guided their own lives and they never had

to consider their own values and act on behalf of them. Clearly however, this was not the

case. The women were aware of lack of freedom which constrained their achievements,

and also keenly aware when “changes” occurred and additional freedoms became

available. The freedoms discussed here – to go to the bank and interact in the public

space for example – were valued. This is not to say that women would value every

freedom that came their way regardless of its content – as Sen writes, “Indeed sometimes

more freedom of choice can bemuse and befuddle, and make one’s life more wretched.”54

However, this study lends further weight to the observation of Chirkov et al that when

they pertain to valued activities, autonomy and agency are indeed prized in collectivist as

well as individualistic cultures.55

53 "Measuring Freedoms Alongside Well-Being." Well-Being in Developing Countries: NewApproaches and Research Strategies. Ian Gough and J. Allister McGregor, Eds. CambridgeUniversity Press [Forthcoming]. See also Alkire 200554 1992a:59. See Sen 1985b, 1991d, 1997d and the references therein.55 Chirkov, Ryan, Kim and Kaplan 2003

166

The study also raises several questions for further study. First, it needs to be emphasized

that while belonging to a group enhances valuable capabilities and in fact is a capability

itself, the poor women did not form groups spontaneously. Kudumbashree played a

critical role in facilitating the formation of groups among women on a state wide scale,

and as we saw these groups did augment the women’s agency. Second, women still

choose to return to a traditional life at home from a ‘freer’ life in their groups / activities

outside the home – and it did not seem from their responses that much change had

occurred within the domestic space except obtaining permission for greater mobility. Is it

a disjunction between capabilities and well-being if women express complete

endorsement of this behaviour? These are further questions to be investigated.

It can be concluded that after the formation of the group the women became more aware

of their rights. They became more self confident and the group gave them strength. They

value the importance of being together and drawing strength from each other!

We give some of the statements made by the women in Figure 2.

Figure 2: On Empowerment….

Group Quotations

Thanima “ We got‘swathanthriyam’( freedom) because of kudumbashree…” says one of these

women. Acc to Sindhu, one of the members “ coming and attending the programs of

kudumbashree is a sort of independence in itself…”

Defining their freedom they say… “ we have real ‘swathanthriyam’ (freedom), when

we go to any bank or office, at first we were afraid about what to speak and how to

behave…but now we have got so many classes from Kudumbashree that we can talk

to anyone in malayalam and can say yes or no in english….”

Dial Now

Multipurpose

Group

The men who were present stated they help their women in all the household work: “if

they do their duty, then we will definitely help”

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Kuruvikad “I knew very well that I could get an income certificate from the Panchayat; we were

able to convince the officials about its urgent need. Earlier if the official said No we

would simply withdraw”

Sarathi “Now we try to be presentable before the group meeting, we are more careful

about the dressing style when we have to go to other houses for purpose of

meeting. We also make our premises neat when a meeting is to be convened in

our house”

Asked about whether they would like to start an enterprise, at one of the

meetings, the response was, “Yes, definitely. We are actually worried about

why we are not getting any benefits even after remaining as a good group for

the last five years”

Sangamam According to one member, ‘‘earlier women were confined inside the house,

looking after children, looking after husband…, shy and never used to come

out and, meet people. Even if she was invited for other people’s marriage she

took the permission of her husband and other family members. But now we are

not shy, can go and help others, if I want to help her I can help her!!!”

Another Member,’ we don’t call for anyone’s help! We can help ourselves! We

have the ability to act on our own, that for us is a greater achievement and

greater ability. We are aware why a person is standing for election i.e., for e.g.

the recent panchayat elections they knew very well whom to vote for and to

select the right person who can air our grievances. That’s well understood by

our women.”

Another member, ‘‘just like a mother’s children we get along very well”

Another member, “No one knew about the bank! We can meet other people

from outside. We can answer the questions and ask our questions because we

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are aware of our rights and what’s happening around us!”

Another member, “Earlier we used to think that because we were illiterate its

better that we confined ourselves to the house itself, kept quite and listened to

others…life was moving on! But now I can go to the bank, go out to other

places etc.”

“we can look after the family and run business.”

“Earlier there was difficulty in meeting people but now we are brave enough to

meet people.”

“We go out in group and get strength.”

“We can go alone without the permission of the husband.”

It can be concluded that after the formation of the group the women became

more aware of their rights. They became more self confident and the group

gave them strength. They value the importance of being together and drawing

strength from each other!

Sauhrutham According to one member, ‘‘earlier women were confined inside the house,

looking after children, looking after husband…, shy and never used to come

out and, meet people. Even if she was invited for other people’s marriage she

took the permission of her husband and other family members. But now we are

not shy, can go and help others, if I want to help her I can help her!!!”

Karuna According to one member, empowerment is “freedom of expression”

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References

Alkire, S. (2002) Valuing Freedoms. Sen's Capability Approach and Poverty Reduction,

(New York, Oxford, Oxford University Press).

Alkire, S. (2005) Subjective quantitative studies of human agency, Social Indicators

Research, (74), pp. 217-60.

Blackburn, J. and J. Holland (1998) Who changes? : institutionalizing participation in

development, (London :, Intermediate Technology).

Chambers, R. (1995) Poverty and Livelihoods: Whose Reality Counts?, IDS Discussion

Paper, (347), pp.

Chambers, R. (1997) Whose reality counts? : putting the first last, (London :,

Intermediate Technology).

Chirkov, V., R. Ryan, et al. (2003) Differentiating Autonomy from Individaulism and

Independence: A Self-Determination Theory Perspective on Internalization of

Cultural Orientations and Well-Being, Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology, (84), pp. 97-110.

Cooke, B. and U. Kothari (2001) Participation : the new tyranny?, (London ;, New York

:, Zed Books).

Holland, J., J. Blackburn, et al. (1998) Whose voice? : participatory research and policy

change, (London :, Intermediate Technology).

Narayan-Parker, D. (2000) Can anyone hear us? : voices of the poor, (Washington, D.C.

:, World Bank).

Narayan-Parker, D. (2005) Measuring Empowerment: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives,

World Bank).

Narayan, D. e. a. (2000) Crying out for change : voices of the poor, (Washington, DC :,

World Bank Publications / Oxford University Press).

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Chapter 7

Understanding Agency in South Kerala:

Two Life Histories

Sunitha Sukendran and Jyothi Nair56

Introduction and Methodology

The vital importance of action by poor persons to confront situations of serious

deprivation, has led many working on poverty reduction to introduce autonomy,

empowerment, agency, self-direction, and self-determination into poverty analyses.57

But what leads to empowerment? One way of reflecting upon this question is to examine

in depth an individual who has progressed from an impoverished background to a

situation of personal, professional, political, and social empowerment. Shobana is one

such woman, and the first, rich case study provides details of her journey. Another way of

learning about empowerment is to study those whose experiences are not yet so

56 We are thankful for the cooperation and assistance of all research team members in providing commentsand input into these life histories, to Christy Risser-Milne for timely and careful editing of them, and mostof all to Ambili and Shobana for sharing their life stories with us. Errors remain our own.57 Alkire 2005, Alsop and Heinsohn 2005, McGillivray 2005, Narayan-Parker 2005 inter alia

171

empowered; Ambili’s story – the story of a destitute woman with a great deal of inner

strength – provides quite a different set of insights.

These life histories were undertaken in the context of a wider study on agency among

women in Kerala, India and El Salvador. The purpose of the study was to develop a

robust quantitative indicator of women’s agency and autonomy in different spheres.

Alongside survey work and focus group discussions, the two life histories presented here

were undertaken to deepen the qualitative understanding of the processes, as well as to

supplement survey data. The first life history examines a “story of success” – it follows

Shobana from a disadvantaged childhood through to her election as Panchayat Member.

The second and complementary case study examines a “story of struggle” – the life of

Ambili, who still suffers from poor quality housing, uncertain employment and social

exclusion, yet still radiates a remarkable core energy and ability to survive with

equanimity in trying circumstances.

Shobana: A Description

The methodology of the first life history was the following. The research team decided to

examine in depth an example of empowerment within one woman’s lifetime. Shobana

was identified as a person who fit these categories during our survey work. The

cooperating agency in the study, Kudumbashree, also recommended her to the research

team and provided a background sketch. The survey team encountered her as a Ward

member who introduced us to other respondents and to focus groups on several

occasions. Having discussed matters and secured Shobana’s agreement to be the subject

of a life history, she was then interviewed for five hours on one occasion, and three hours

at a later date. In addition to the interview, the authors visited her home, listened to what

ward members said about her, and observed her interactions in Panchayat meetings as

well as in the community.

Shobana is a confident and bold looking woman. At only 32 years of age she is the

people’s representative in local government, a Panchayat ward member. She is married to

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an electrician, Ranjit, and has two lovely daughters, Ranjini and Ranjitha. She has four

brothers and she is the youngest in the family. She lives in a place called Cherppath

(Venganoor) – which is a rural area near to the city of Trivananthapuram in the South

Indian state of Kerala.

Childhood, Social Work, and Marriage

Shobana was brought up in a family of four brothers they always considered her as no

different than themselves. This behaviour helped her advance in life. They they always

considered her as “just one of the boys”. Her father was a casual labourer and mother is a

full-time housewife. Because she came from a deprived and downtrodden background,

she wanted to help these people and she believed she could help them only through social

work. She has a degree in history but wanted to study sociology on the master’s level, so

that she would be well equipped to carry out her social work. Due to circumstances

beyond her control, she instead carried on with the education that had she received on the

undergraduate level.

Shobana’s childhood ambition in life was to become a well known person. She enjoyed

helping others, and used to teach illiterate children in the locality to read. While a student,

she also used to provide tutoring and only accepted a minimal fee. She also helped the

illiterate people to fill out forms, write letters and so on. As she described herself, she

rendered help to those who asked for her help, and they in turn gave her a feeling that she

was someone. This was her stepping stone to social work.

Even before completing her studies, she began to volunteer to do social work and was

engaged in small-scale activities. After the completion of her course, she became

completely involved in it. She actively participated as a volunteer for health related

issues, like polio eradication etc. According to her, “social work is recognition from the

common man. We get to meet people; will get an opportunity to get to know about the

eminent personalities who come to the meetings.” Attending these meetings “we get a

sort of recognition of our personal achievements”. Recognition of her personal

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achievements is one of the greatest achievements of her life and she is really happy about

it.

She worked as an accountant at Shanti Gram and learned accounting from the training

that she received from an institute. She was already working for a group so they sent her

for the training for the accounts and bookkeeping course.

“If we want to be successful we have to get training in the respective field. If we don’t

get the proper training we won’t be able to balance it out.” It really helped her when she

took active participation in the kudumbashree works. At first she was a member of

oneNeighborhood Help Group (NHG). Then she became the president, then the secretary

of the group, later became the president of Area Development Society (ADS), then

through the Community Development Society (CDS) election she became the CDS

chairperson. Now she is the ward member of 19th ward.

She cannot turn a blind eye to the woes of the people. She wants to be very active in her

community and the work there gives her a lot of satisfaction. When she compares her

woes to that of the people with whom she works, she is reminded that her difficulties are

so small and insignificant as compared to theirs. She said without the support of her

family members it would be difficult to work outside the home. She has traveled for her

social work, and she has been to Palakkad, Trissur, and all the places in Trivandrum

district. She is also running a micro enterprise (computer center) that has ten computers.

She is the secretary of the group and there are six members in this unit.

Shobana was married on Oct 2, 1996. After marriage she moved to Thozhichal ward, ten

kilometers from her family. She had an ‘arranged marriage’ in the sense that the proposal

came from the groom’s parents – but Shobana herself, rather than her parents, chose her

husband from among the various marriage proposals. It was her choice to get married to

the person whom she liked. Her decisions and interests were given prominence because

people outside her family respected her for her voluntary work prior to marriage and she

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thus received respect from the entire family. She was free to express her opinion; to

decide how she should lead her life and so on.

Her Daily Routine….

Shobana’s daily routine starts at 5:30 in the morning. She does all the kitchen work, and

fetches water from the well. She sends the children to school, and her husband goes to the

office. Her children help her a little in this work. She has trained the children to take care

of themselves, to dress on their own etc, right from the beginning; she trained themlike to

be independent. The elder daughter is in second standard and younger one is in first

standard. Shobana said, “Children should know the hardships in life and so they can

strive for a better future. If they have to face hardships in later stage of their life they can

face it with full strength and confidence. The suicides rates are on the increase here in

Kerala because the children are not aware of the deprived state of affairs of their parents.

They are provided with everything.” She has trained her children in so that after coming

from school they take care of all their own needs. She wants her children to study hard,

and what they choose to become is entirely left to them. Nothing will be imposed on

them. People visit Shobana at her house for some emergency purposes from time to time,

and she helps them. When she comes home late, her children know in advance that she

will be coming late. Even her children get an opportunity to talk to people without being

shy. Shobana believes that women should not be confined inside the house, should be

strong and enterprising. Most of the women are satisfied leading the life of a housewife

and looking after the household activities, but she believes that both of them (husband

and wife) should be working and managing the household.

She is highly influenced by…

Shobana’s heroine is Saha Medydhini. She said, “Saha Meydhini is an old social activist,

when I listen to her speeches I get a feeling that I want to be like her.” Shobana is totally

mesmerized by Saha Meydhini’s speeches. Maydhini has worked for the welfare of

humanity.

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When Shobana goes to the ward meetings she gets an opportunity to meet prominent

women from different walks of life, gets a chance to listen to their speeches and to know

how they came up in life, and made their mark in this society. She learns what they had to

do to rise above the other women in this society, and what they did for the welfare and

raising up of the poor people. What are the things and activities that we can do like them

in the society for the welfare of the poor? Through these meetings she said she was able

to get more knowledge about the outside world.

How she became a ward member….

Shobana held the post of CDS chairperson during a very propitious period in Indian

political history. Many far-reaching changes took place in this Panchayat during the two

years when she was holding the post. People admired her work as a CDS member, and by

her competent leadership she was able to gain their support. During this period they

started with new micro enterprises, and started a school. The Ashraya (Destitute)

programme was implemented through Kudumbashree in this Panchayat in the year 2004-

05. The Kudumbashree NHGs were successfully linked to banks so that members could

obtain loans. Several foreign institutions came here to study the Venganoor Panchayat,

which had become a ‘model Panchayat’ within the state because of the thriving

Kudumbashree activities. These are her achievements for the work that she had carried

out as a part of the Kudumbashree.

During her tenure as CDS chairperson, various people suggested that she should run in

the elections for the post of ward member. After considering the matter, she related that

she “decided on her own to stand for the election.” She then conveyed this decision to her

family members. She said that, “people are suggesting that I run in the election, ok what

is your opinion?” Then they said, ‘If you have the desire to run in the election you can

stand for the election.’ My family members supported me. They gave more weight to my

decisions”. Shobana’s father in-law is a political activist so many people supported her.

During the election, out of the 17 wards she won the election with a lead of 121 votes.

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Three candidates ran in the election represented by three political parties they were, Bjp

candidate (Jayashree), Congress (Geetakumari), Ldf (Shobana). It was her first time

campaigning for an election. She was not at all nervous to take the centre stage and

speak to the public because earlier she used to take part in a lot of activities relating to

kudumbashree, and they have conducted many functions since, and she has had the

chance to speak in public at these functions. But she felt campaigning for an election and

asking people to vote for her was a different experience. She said the way in which we

speak to the people is different from the one that we deliver during our social service

activities. “We are supposed to speak what people expect of us, people who listen to your

speeches would be curious to know what the future member has in store for them if they

elect her. So I need to deliver the speech similar to their views whereas in a speech in

social work which is not a political one so we can speak and talk on more and, more

matters that are of our concern, because we need to work for the people regardless of any

political party.” According to Shobana one should not mix social work with politics. She

doesn’t differentiate between people on the basis of political party, and she helps people

from other political party too. There were a lot of people to listening to her speech; she

was accompanied by her sister-in-law. Her sister-in-law is a full-time housewife and told

her that she had a lot of courage to take the stage and deliver the speech.

After winning the election she was happy beyond words. Part of the reason her victory

was such an honor, is that she doesn’t belong to that ward, she said, “I was given

recognition by the people for the social work that I have rendered to them.”

She was very confident that she would win the election. While the votes were being

counted, she eagerly awaited the results. She was not at all scared of the results. She said,

“Wining the election is nothing but recognition from the people”. She didn’t see it like an

election contests…if she had not won the election still she would have continued her

social work actively. She said, “what ever activities I have done for the people have been

recognized and so I won! I was able to make a good name among the community, to be in

their good books… these are the recognitions I have seen and I have experienced. I am

happy.” She said this is not her family she got married and came to this place. She helped

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the people from this place and as she was able to gain their trusted vote. She got their

support. She became the member and she took the responsibility of the ward. As a

member she is entrusted with the allocation of government funds to the welfare of the

poor people like maintenance of the roof, housing for the homeless, electrification of the

house etc. She is supposed to identify these poor people who are deserving and it’s her

responsibility to follow through. Then she should also look in to the basic needs of the

ward as a whole ie.: regular water supply, road maintenance, street lamps, sanitation

facility, kindergarten. Earlier when she was the CDS chairperson she had to look into the

work of the entire panchayat but now she had to concentrate only on the welfare activities

of her ward. She is supposed to be actively involved in the developmental activities of her

ward; she has to contact the institutions and agencies for the welfare of the ward. This

ward comes under the tourism area, and they have approached the tourism department.

They have helped in the construction of a road and maintenance of street lights in their

ward. They have a settlement colony in this ward and they want the people to receive

water, electricity, and proper road connection. They want the Scheduled Caste

Department to work for their betterment. Shobana is of the view that block and zilla

pancahyat should render their service in this area. These are few of the activities which

she will be involved in for the coming five years. Another activity is to provide houses

for the people who come under the Ashraya scheme. Before, when there was no proper

water connection in their area, she was able to provide them with water at least two times

a week, and was able to solve an electricity problem etc. People are very happy when she

visits them frequently. She listens to what they have to say and helps them, and works

hard to maintain a close connection with the people. “From all this recognition I get a

strange feeling of pride…it’s beyond words….I cannot show how large it is…one has to

experience it to get the feeling…it cannot be quantified…it’s a kind of recognition for

being humane, It can be compared to the happiness a child experiences when receiving a

surprise gift from her parent. The child thinks she got the gift without asking for it and

the parents knew she wanted it and she would be immensely happy …I get the same

feeling like that of the child.”

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So in these five years she aspires to lay down a strong foundation for these welfare

programmes and to win the hearts of the people through such activities.

When people approach her she always helps in all possible ways she can, and listens to

what they have to say. Those people who seek her help always receive it from her. She

helps them to fill the forms and other documents and helps them to save the money so

that they can at use it for their transportation needs. She said, “People see me as one

among them…people’s representative means the one who will stand with them and

always be there for them…as a member you are not rising to a higher position but we

should see these common people as superior to us …as they are the ones who decide who

they want as the member. After winning the contest we should never forget these people.

It’s only after wining that we get an opportunity to do something for the welfare of the

people. Even for small things they require our help. For us it may be a simple but when

we help them they really value it.”

“During disputes between neighbors, they may require the help of a member We act like

a mediator, and we need both of them. We try to avoid the conflict by handling the

situation carefully…therefore we become a part of their lives.”

If there is a sick person she visits them, and does all that is possible to help. Even if she

can’t provide them with any benefits, just being visited by her and having her inquire as

to their wellbeing gives them a lot of happiness. Shobana frequently visits the ward.

According to her, if the elected person is neglecting the people it would be a big blow to

the sentiments of the common mass.

When her mother passed away a lot people visited her house and people from her home

‘ward’ were surprised to see a lot of people … “these people were feeling important too

when people from other wards came asking about me…it’s all because of my social work

and these are few of my achievements…I felt really good when all of them visited me and

consoled me I felt as if they were sharing my sorrow. I have the support and love of many

people.”

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Shobana aspires to be a very popular woman. There are no women from her place who

are empowered. According to her empowered women are rare women…who have fought

in life and come up in a better way. The social surrounding has got a greater influence in

empowering women. Women from higher social strata have no fear to come out in the

public arena, but it is when poor women come out that you can trace empowerment.

“Empowerment is nothing but to empower the poor downtrodden woman…. their better

position in life…because other women are aware of being empowered. Why should

women be empowered? What are the benefits that we get when we co-operate and work

together? These concepts are valued and understood by an educated woman or an

average woman but not the poor woman.”

Her family members don’t go anywhere, she goes everywhere. All the women in her

family are more devoted to household duties, they don’t want to go out and meet people

or take up a job outside the home. But they belong to NHG. One of her sisters-in-law has

learned tailoring, can do her own work and was influenced by Shobana. Most of them say

that they don’t want to take any risk. The risks are taken by the male members of the

family and women remain neutral. According to Shobana “women should also take

responsibilities.”

Shobana said,” I definitely enjoy some freedom…for an ordinary woman if its 6 pm or 7

pm she is not allowed to go out. Sometimes I come home as late as 8pm…but my family

members have not restricted my freedom…because I am working for the welfare of the

people. All these are a part of my freedom that I enjoy. Freedom is the ability to take your

own decisions….freedom in all aspects of life. This freedom means there are different

types of freedom....the real meaning of “being free” that we enjoy.”

If she wants to help someone and if she can, she will definitely help that person. For

Shobana it is a kind of freedom. She said, “These are the ways in which I enjoy

freedom.” Shonana said,” unemployed women always need the support of their husbands

and other members. Even if they want to buy a dress they ask their husband in a polite

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manner could you please buy me a dress? But when we have our own income, we can

buy what we like to buy… what we want. Even if it’s a small income we can do what we

want to do with it. We can spend it on our own personal needs and requirements.”

If she wants to go alone she will definitely go alone. Those women who are confined to

the house will not dare to go out to an unknown place. Whereas Shobana will go to the

place and find the route and get there no matter what. “Finally I will reach my destination

… this is also a part of freedom that I enjoy.” But a housewife who would be less than

willing to take the risk will say, “I am sorry I am scared I won’t go alone.” “Freedom can

be expressed only when we experience it in real life.”

Oppressed women are considered weak human beings...This is the belief that exists in

society. When we talk of freedom it’s not freedom from men…many men support the

women for their activities.....“Freedom of women is not from men but can only be

achieved from the change in attitude of the people’s minds.” Shobana believes that the

women who say they don’t want this kind of freedom need a change of attitude.

Emancipation of woman can be achieved only when they are taught why women should

have freedom. What benefits will they get through this? (“Sthree Swanthanthriyam”)

women’s empowerment is misinterpreted in many ways…it’s not the freedom from men,

we have a family, we have husbands, brothers, etc. They all are men who have supported

us in different walks of life. They want their children to speak freely. Shobana said, “...

[When] you have freedom, you can make choices and act accordingly, but if your

freedom was restricted and you were oppressed would this have been possible? So there

are men who want to give us freedom, who will support us in life, and we need their co-

operation and support. “However liberated or free ‘us’ women may become it is still

important that we accept and recognize each other amongst ourselves.”

What ever degree of empowerment a woman achieves it still remains significant for

women to accept and recognize each other amongst themselves (mutual support, respect,

sense of unity in the group). Before, when she used to go to the NHG meetings she was

discouraged from going there, and was more encouraged to be a housewife and many

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women support this view…but men supported such groups and encouraged the women to

join them. Shobana has experienced that sort of empowerment. Therefore she supports

her above statement.

According to her, women’s empowerment means “women can talk freely about

themselves.”

Shobana is a classic case of a woman who enjoys agency in many domains of her life –

within her home and family, with respect to mobility, employment, and political action.

Furthermore, she uses her agency for socially constructive purposes. This too, is key, for

we must recall that empowered people worldwide also regularly augment and use their

agency for violence, exclusion, and self-gain. What is it that makes Shobana’s case so

pleasing? It is the combination of her agency with her powerful commitment to social

work.

Life History- Ambili

The methodology of the second life history was the following. The research team decided

to examine in depth the life of a destitute woman. Ambili is a destitute under the Ashraya

scheme. She had the further intriguing quality of seeming very happy and strong within

herself, thus containing a paradox of empowerment and disempowerment simultaneously.

The ward member Manjilas introduced her to the research team. To accomplish the life

history, the team visited her three times, during the survey, as well as twice at a later time

to take her life history. She was happy to be interviewed. She wanted to share her

experiences and to spend time with us. She felt as if there was someone to listen to her. In

addition to the interview, the authors visited her home and weaving site, and observed her

interactions with her children as well as in the community.

Ambili is a destitute covered under the Ashraya, or destitute, scheme of Kudumbashree,

which aims at providing basic amenities to those poorest of the poor households. They

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are the people who are helpless, underprivileged and lack access to even the basic

amenities of life such as a house, drinking water, latrine, having family members

suffering from infectious diseases and female headed households, with physically or

mentally challenged children.

Ambili became a beneficiary of Ashraya scheme because her husband left her and she is

the mother of two very young children who are studying in primary school. She is very

lean but what is unique about her is her characteristic smile. She laughs a lot and in

between her giggles she told her story. She began:

“No one would have suffered in life as I have in my life. After going through all these

turmoils in life, I feel very confident now.”

She is the youngest of three sisters. Her father died within days after her birth. It was her

mother who worked hard to raise these three daughters. The mother had 32 cents of land

in her name and when her eldest daughter was to be married, an agreement was made that

13 cents would be given to the eldest daughter and the remaining money was to be

divided between the other two sisters, but this never took place. The eldest sister took all

the property away. Later on, the mother and the two daughters had to struggle for their

basic survival. Meanwhile the second sister got married. It was register marriage and

Ambili and her mother continued to live in her son-in-law’s house at their mercy. Later

on they worked hard all day in and out of the house, and were able to put 5 cents of land

in the name of Ambili.

After that Ambili’s marriage took place. Her husband left her when she was five months

pregnant with her second son. It was then a terrible thing for her. She and her mother

suffered great difficulty to earn a living. The most important was to built a house of their

own. They started the construction of the house with mud and whatever wood they could

obtain. Many neighbours helped her, feeling great pity for her. She said she too has

worked a lot to built the house, and she used to carry loads to avoid paying labour

charges. But when she couldn’t find enough wood for the door, it was her good

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neighbour who helped her at that time. She goes quite often to that neighbour to help with

the domestic work; she is very fond of that neighbour because they help her so much. She

works for them occasionally and even if she is not paid in cash she doesn’t mind it. She

said:

“They often call my children when some celebrations is there in their house, or when they

make any special food, otherwise also they give some additional food for my children.

They are very considerate people”

Now she is staying in the house she built, which is in very poor condition. It has walls

made of raw mud and the roof is thatched. There are only two rooms and one kitchen.

She has only one plastic chair, which was given to her by the Panchayat when she was

made a member of Ashraya scheme. She also received one suitcase from the government,

which she showed us. It was kept in a corner of the house and was rusting slowly. She

was not storing anything in it, but all the clothes were hanging or dumped around the

space. She was laughing while she showed us that suitcase, as if to say, “what is the use

of giving suitcase to those who doesn’t have money to buy clothes or have clothes to

store in it?” About the house she said,

“During rainy season it is very difficult to sleep here as water will pour inside house

through the holes in the thatched roof, so I have been trying hard to thatch the house

once more with new materials”

But she fears that she will not be able to finish it. She talked to the interviewers about the

promises given to her by the officials. She said she became a beneficiary of the Ashraya

scheme due to the initiative of the earlier Panchayat member. She was actively seeking a

loan for house maintenance. After all efforts for getting a loan failed, she was very

disappointed and depressed. She pleaded with the Panchayat member to help her as there

was no one else who could help her. The member then said that loans are given on the

basis of priority, and the funds do not meet all of the needs. He told her that she will be

made a part of the Ashraya scheme. She then left the office believing that something

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would happen soon. Then later a photo of her house was taken. A promise was given that

house will be provided for her very soon. But she says that,

“It has been one year since the promise was made. Nothing has happened. The next

member took initiative to give priority to another person who in a better position than

me.”

She is of opinion that Panchayat can do a lot of things to change their life, but all that is

needed is a concerted effort on the part of Panchayat officials. She doesn’t have a well of

her own. Her 5 cents of land is left fallow, because she has not done any cultivation there.

After becoming a beneficiary of Ashraya, she was given some provisions, a plastic chair,

and a suitcase. One day the Chief Minister of the state came to see the households

coming under Ashraya scheme. Then some provisions like rice, cereals, sugar, etc. were

given to her. She has also received school uniforms for herchildren. Recently, she says

that she hasn’t received any benefits.

She is illiterate who studied only to 3rd standard. She can somehow mange to read but is

incapable of writing. But she places very much importance upon her sons’ education.

Both of them are in primary classes and are relatively good in studies.

“Because of sending my children to school, now I too have learned to read from them.

They are very much interested in teaching me. So I feel proud of them”.

When we asked her children what their ambition was, the elder son was there. He wants

to become a priest. She then interjected that the younger one wants to become a public

speaker. She then said that she very often goes for prayer meetings with her sons, and

they have been influenced by the power of the speeches made by there. They now go

regularly for Sunday classes where religious and moral education is provided. Her elder

son is very eager to learn Bible stories and has won a prize for getting the highest marks

in examination. She very proudly showed us the prize he won. It was a colorful book of

Bible stories.

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She was a Hindu earlier but now she has converted to Christianity. When we asked the

reason for her conversion, she said that it was due to her belief in the miracle of God. She

was suffering from disease similar to arthritis, and was also not mentally well. She used

to have nightmares that some snakes were moving over her body. The poverty, disease,

and mental depression all made her living very difficult. She got no help from temple.

Then once she heard about the prayer meeting and the miracles performed there. She was

attracted by the experiences of others and one day accompanied other believers to the

venue. In due course of prayer the ‘brother’ made an announcement that a lady who is

suffering from the nightmares of snakes will be relieved by the mercy of God from her

sufferings. Then she had a very strange feeling as something was gradually moving out of

her body and she felt much relief after that. Then she became a strong believer because it

cured her all her anguish. Her mother was against her going to church, but she managed

explain that her decision was firm. She somehow managed to make her mother aware of

the importance she attaches to worshiping God. Now she is a staunch believer in

Christianity and goes to church on most Sundays.

She learned weaving from a relative and is at presently working in a weaving unit run by

her neighbour. She is usually engaged in weaving the ‘mundu’ (the garment worn down

from the waist by men). Usually it takes about one and half to two days for weaving the

mundu. She is paid according to the number of mundu she weaves. This is a traditional

garment, and now many young people are reluctant to wear it. The middlemen also

snatch a good profit. She is working for an employer who sells the product mostly

through middlemen. She is worried about this job because her employer will stop this

when they find it too unprofitable. When she was asked whether the job is giving her a

livelihood, she said

“No one who wishes to earn a living should pursue this job. This is a very seasonal job

and we do not get paid as we should have”

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Does Ambili live on less than $1 a day? She earns about 35 rupees a day, which is .78

cents a day at the nominal exchange rate. But the PPP for India is 5:1, so she earns, in

ppp terms, $3.9/day for the days she works – that is, 2.17 pounds – to support herself and

her two sons. She does not work every day, so it is safe to say that the family lives on less

than $1/day.

She occasionally works as domestic labour in neighboring households when the weaving

is not in demand. She is not very particular about how much is paid to her, but she values

more the love and compassion shown by the members of these households to her. She

regards her job as a very insecure one because it helps only in sustaining herself and not

in educating her children. She feels that this job will not make her life secure because the

earning is very low. She also is afraid of taking bank loan because she is not sure whether

she will be able to pay back the loan. If one of her sons gets ill, then she will not be able

to go to the job. Then the expenses of the medicine and her inability to work will force

her to take debt. So when illnesses are very frequent, then the debt increases. Her health

problems also slow down the pace of work or make her incapable of working. This also

increases her debt. During the rainy season the handloom gets stuck, so there is no work

during that time. It is due to her incapacity to pursue any other job that she continues in

this job. She said that she always tries to get out of this job. She doesn’t value her work at

all.

She does the entire household job by herself. She rises in the morning and makes rice.

For breakfast she usually makes “puttu”(steamed rice flour with grated coconut and

sugar), because it is cheap and also because the children like it. The children do not carry

lunch because they get the ‘Uchakanji’ (rice along with the water in which it is boiled)

and some cereal curry in school at noon time. After sending her children school, she goes

for work then comes back at 11 o’clock take some ‘pazhankaji’ (left over rice of previous

day left in plain water so that it doesn’t get bad). Then she purchases some fish, usually

some cheaper ones like ‘chala’(sardine), and makes curry. Then she returns to her job

and comes home in the afternoon to eat and then does some cleaning work in the house

and then leaves again for her job. In the evening she comes home when her children

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come home. She feeds them and prayers. Sometimes in the night when she feels very

afraid she reads Bible then she become more confident and strong and quite often falls

asleep while reading Bible.

She makes all the decisions in the family because she is alone. She said:

“I have to make decisions on my own, if I had husband I would have consulted with him.

But now as I am alone I have to decide on my own.”

She gives due respect to the opinion of her old mother, and often consults with her when

some important decision is made. Regarding health care she usually goes to the

government hospital but she doesn’t have very high opinion about the government

hospitals. She has some occupational health conditions, she is allergic to the cotton and

has asthma due to breathing the fine dust of the cotton, and she says it is an unavoidable

part of her job.

She is free to move to some places but mostly she seeks permission of her mother when

she is going to some far or unusual places. She also now tells her children when she is

going someplace far away. She said she goes to some places were the prayer is going on

with out any hesitation. She said

“My children always say that they want to see the sea, but as I am not able to take them

there, I say that Tsunami will come at any time so its dangerous to got to seashore.”

She is not a member of any NHG. She asked,

“What is the use of a group for financially deprived persons. I don’t have money to give

them weekly even if it is thrift collection. If you have no money, nobody needs you. I was

previously a member of a group, and then they said that I can’t continue in the group, I

don’t know the reason may be because they know that I have no money with me.”

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She said that if any change is to occur in her life then all her family members and her

relatives should help her rather than the group members. She believes that family ties are

more important than the group ties.

Ambili’s survey in context:

Ambili did not look like a destitute ….she was not sad and unhappy like the others. She

was vibrant, one can actually see rays of hope reflecting from her face as if it would

never fade away…one can feel the she was protected by a shield of force. She was

holding on to this hope and she draws strength from it. She is a firm believer in her

religion. When she was talking about her daily routine, she said she reads the holy Bible

daily. Her emotions ran high and she said quoting few lines from it saying that, “these

lines have been written for people like us”…in the larger picture it is her firm belief in

God that is giving her the strength and that she is able to forget all her woes and move

ahead in life.

This section ponders over some of the questions from the survey, and Ambili’s responses,

to try to understand her responses in the context of our greater understanding of her life

and circumstances.

One interesting question asked: “what are the three thing(s) would you most like to

change?” The respondent could provide three answers. Ambili’s answers were:

1. A good job

2. Children’s education

3. A house

When we asked her what three things you would like to change in life she said she wants

to have a good job. There are several reasons why she said this. She is heading the

household and has to take care of her two sons. She is working as a weaver and when

there is no weaving she will work as a domestic servant. She has to work no matter what,

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there is no other choice left for her. Boldly she said that she is feeling very insecure at her

present job, which is not even permanent. She said if she didn’t work then they would all

starve. Thus she aspires to secure a better job so that she can take care of her family. She

is earning little money, which she can utilize only for their daily minimal requirements.

She understands that she requires money to educate her children. She wants to provide

them with good education so that they can earn a better living. Finally, she said she wants

a house. She is living in a hut with a roof made of thatched grass and walls plastered with

mud in combination with bricks. She hopes that she gets a new house soon as during the

rainy season it’s very difficult for them to escape the rains inside their house.

Another interesting question asked, “Who do you think will contribute most to any

change in your life?”

Ambili answered that she feels her community and herself can bring changes in her life.

She was a Hindu ezhava and she later on converted into Christianity. Now she is a firm

believer of the religion. She draws a lot of strength from the church through prayer

meetings and sermons. She wants to change so she draws strength from church. For her,

change is inevitable, she is ‘weaving’ hopes and dreams for her children’s future.

Another interesting question asked, “Do you think people like yourself can generally

change things in your community if they want to?

Ambili answered that people like her can generally change things in the community, but

with a great deal of difficulty.

Another interesting question that asked, “ Please imagine a nine-step ladder where on the

bottom, the first step, people who are completely without power, and on the highest step,

the ninth, stand those who have a lot of power. On which are you today?

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Ambili answered that she is in the first step. She was not at all feeling empowered. Or is

it because she has aspirations for her children, hoping and wanting to learn more, better

job so that life would be more secure?

Ambili’s life history raises many questions. She is destitute – worried about food, sad she

can never take the children to the beach, feeling helpless to advocate on her own behalf

for the house she deserves. And yet she smiles.

Ambili’s case is a classic case of a kind of “adaptive” preferences of which Sen speaks.

Her agency is low in many areas of life, even by her own scoring, and should be

increased. At the same time, she has adapted her expectations to her circumstances, and

learned to be serene and even happy despite her destitution. She accomplished this

largely, it seems, because of a vibrant religious faith. Her faith, unfortunately, is quite

isolated from social and political concerns. Is this inner strength also a kind of agency or

empowerment in a different domain? Whether or not it is, Ambili’s case raises many

troubling questions for us. Ironically, Ambili lives in the ward over which Shobana is a

Ward member. How will their paths intersect?

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Box 1: Reflections on the Facilitator Rankings of Ambili’s Empowerment

She scored 4: (fully empowered) in the education ranking. She wants her children to learn

well and secure a good job. She is an illiterate but she learned from her children. She

values the importance of education.

For employment she scored rank 1(disempowered) the facilitator was of the opinion that

she is disempowered. She wanted to leave the job because she is dissatisfied, but there is

no other alternative. She is very sure of the fact that she will not be able to raise the

standard of her living.

But I think she can be ranked as 2-3 as despite of her deprived condition she has secured

herself a job in two places, as the weaving job is not a permanent one she also works as a

domestic servant she enjoys working there with the family.

She scored rank of 3: (moderately empowered) as per the facilitators ranking in the

household work. She values her household work and she is heading the household and

she has full control of her household duties. She enjoys her household work as she has

young children and need more care.

I would have ranked her as 3-4 because she is heading the household and taking all the

decisions.

In the health domain she is ranked as 3 (moderately empowered) she is well aware of the

importance of good health. She treats at home but she would also rush them to a hospital.

She prefers to treat them in a private hospital.

In the mobility domain she is ranked 2(somewhat empowered). She cannot move around

freely she is afraid of what people will speak of her. But she manages to go to some

places for work. If she goes out she informs her mother and children.

In the group/ organizational Assets she is ranked as 1 ---according to the facilitator she

doesn’t give much importance to the groups, as she is not able to pay the monthly

collection.

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Thank you for agreeing to take part in this survey. We would like to ask you somequestions that will help us to understand the situation in which you find yourself invarious areas of your life, and how these are connected with how much control you feelyou have when you are making decisions and putting your decisions into action.

The results of this survey will be completely confidential and no identifying data will becollected. Some of the questions may also be quite personal and we hope this will be OKwith you. If, however, you do not feel comfortable answering any questions, please feelfree to say so.

Enumerator Name: -____________________________________________________

1.1 Respondent code number (from list): Name:

Section 1: Location details

1.2 Province/state __________________________________________________

1.3 District ________________________________________________________

1.4 Thaluk ________________________________________________________

1.5 Panchayat/Municipality/Corporation ______________________________

1.6 Ward ______________________________ __________________________

1.7 Area __________________________________________________

1.8 Type of area: [Observation only]1 Urban2 Rural3 Tribal

1.9 Type of Group / person1 Destitutes2 NHG3 Enterprise group

1.9 a If Enterprise, which Enterprise: _________________________________

Code

Questionnaire No.CONFIDENTIAL

FOR RESEARCH PURPODE ONLY

193

1.10 Who is present during the interview? [Observation only]1 Respondent and enumerator only2 Respondent, spouse and enumerator3 Respondent, other household member(s) and enumerator.4 Neighbours.

Section 2: Housing Conditions

2.1 Do you live in a house you own?1 Yes2 No

2.1a If owned, in whose name? Yourself or husband or jointly?_____________________

2.1b If not owned, who owns it?1 Rented2 Relatives including father in law3 Squatter4 Sharing [Specify and add code: ________________________]

2.2-3 What construction material is used for your house or building? [Observation or ask themif not interviewing them]

2.2 ROOF 2.3 WALL1 Concrete 1. Bricks/Stone/Cement2 Tile 2 Sheet/Wood3 Sheet of Tin/Asbestos 3 Thatched / Bamboo4 Thatched/Grass 4 Mud5 Other [Specify and add code: ________________________]

2.4 Is your house Electrified?1 Yes2 No

2.5 What is the source of supply of potable water?

1 Public water connection 2 Public tap

3 Own well/tank/bore well 4 Others’ well/tank/bore well5 Purchase it for a price from a private water supplier6 Other – specify

2.6 Do you have sanitation?1 Yes2 No

2.7 Do you personally own any land or property (for farming/livestock/renting out etc)?

1 Yes2 No

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Section 3: Respondent details

First I would like to ask some questions about yourself. If you do not wish to answer a particularquestion, please feel free to say.

3.1 Gender of respondent [Observation only]

1 Female2 Male

3.2 What is your age?

3.3 What is your marital status?

1 Married2 Single3 Separated4 Widowed5 Divorced

3.3.1 If married, what is your husband’s occupation?:

3.4 How many people live in your household? ______________________(Total Number)

Who? __________________________________

3.5 What is your religion?

1. Hindu2. Christian3. Muslim4. Others _________________________________

3.6 What caste do you belong to? [Enumerator writes answer; codes later]

1 Forward2 Backward3 Scheduled Caste4 Tribe5 Other

[Write Actual Answer] ____________________________________

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Section 4: Education

4.1 Do you know how to read and/or write?

1 Yes2 No

4.2 What educational level have you reached at the moment?58

4.3 What other training have you had?Vocational Training [Specify]_________________________________________________________________

Informal Training [Specify]_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

Other [Specify and add code:___________________]

4.3 What educational level did your parents reach?

4.4 What educational levels did your children reach? (circle all that apply)

4.5 Any of your children working? Yes/ No. If yes, what is his/her occupation?:

Now I am going to ask you some questions about your experience of sending your children toschool. I am now going to describe possible reasons why your children go (went) to school andask you to rank how well each fits with your own reasons. [Show card, Enumerator: if the persondid not send children to school you need to adjust the questions below to reflect their answer, assuggested in the parentheses Someone else insisted that my children stay at home…]

1. External Pressure. Someone else (husband, family, law) insisted that my children go to schooland study (stay at home). OR I sent them school because of the midday meal or other benefits.

1 58 No education / illterate2 Literate – can just read/write3 Lower Primary (1-4)4 Upper Primary (5-7)5 High School (8-10)6 +1/+27 Technical college graduate8 Graduate9 Post-graduate10 Informal Training11 Don’t know

Girl 1 Son 4

Father

Level

Pass/ Fail/ Incomplete

Mother

Son 3Son 2Son 1Girl

d 3

Girl 2

Technical

196

How well does this reason describe your experience? [Show card]not at all true not very true somewhat true completely true

4.6 1 2 3 4

2. Others’ Opinions. I sent my children to school so those around me would approve of me andrespect me.How well does this reason describe your experience? [Show card]


4.7 1 2 3 4

3. I think it is important. I sent my children to school because I personally believed that it wasimportant and valuable for them to receive an education.How well does this reason describe your experience? [Show card]


4.8 1 2 3 4

4. I deeply and freely support this. I thought about various educational possibilities for mychildren and I value the level of education they have.How well does this reason describe your experience? [Show card]


4.9 1 2 3 4

Section 5: Employment

What is your occupation [Enumerator List two]?59

5.1 Main Occupation ___________________________________

5.2 Secondary Occupation_______________________________

5.3 How would you categorize your activity status?

1 Housewife2 Unemployed and seeking work3 Casual employee

1 59 Household Duty

2 Agriculture (Farming, Laborer)

3 Fisherperson

4 Petty Trade (Buying and Selling)

5 Household Industry (Weaving, Kerashree, etc)

6 Domestic Labor

7 Construction Worker

8 Service – plumbing, electrical, computer, canteen, etc. [Specify]

9 Any Other Casual Laborera. Tuition Teachers

10 Non-household manufacturing

11 Public sector

12 Others _____________________________________[specify and add code]

197

4 Self-employed5 Regular

If Respondent is only a Housewife, skip to Question 5.9

5.4 How often have you voluntarily changed your employment/occupation in the past?

1 Very often2 Fairly often3 Never

If 1 or 2, please ask, Why? _____________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

5.5 How often have you involuntarily had to change your employment/occupation in thepast?

1 Very often2 Fairly often3 Never

If 1or 2 please ask, Why? _____________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

5.6 How secure do you feel in your present employment/occupation?

1 Very secure2 Fairly secure3 Fairly insecure4 Very insecure

Please ask, Why? _______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

5.7 How much do you earn each month? __________________________________

5.8 When you yourself earn money, who decides how to spend it?

_______________________________________________________________

5.9 Do you have any savings in money or gold?1 Yes2 No

5.10 If Yes, where do you keep them (circle all that apply)

198

1 Bank2 Chitty3 Gold4 Other

5.11 Are you in debt?1 Yes2 No

5.12 What is your total household income per month? ___________________

Is it the same every month?__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5.13 Do you collect social security/unemployment benefit regularly?

1 Yes2 No

If Respondent is only a Housewife please skip to Question 6.1

I am now going to describe possible reasons why you do paid work or economic activityand ask you to rank how well each fits with your own reasons. .

0. No Control. I work to earn an income. I have to work no matter what.How well does this reason describe your experience? [Show card]


5.14 1 2 3 41. External Pressure. Someone insists that I do this work.How well does this reason describe your experience? [Show card]


5.15 1 2 3 4

2. So people approve of me. I do this so that people think well of me and respect me. If I didnot I might feel ashamed.How well does this reason describe your experience? [Show card]


5.16 1 2 3 4

3. I think it is important. I do this work because I personally believe it is important andvaluable. How well does this reason describe your experience? [Show card].


5.17 1 2 3 4

4. I deeply and freely support this. I considered various options for my work, and I value whatI do.How well does this reason describe your experience? [Show card]


5.18 1 2 3 4

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Section 6. Household Duties

I am now going to describe possible reasons why you do household duties and ask you torank how well each fits with your own reasons.

0. No Control. I do not have any control over whether to do household work since there is noone else to do it.How well does this reason describe your experience? [Show card]


6.1 1 2 3 41. External Pressure. Someone else insists that I do this work – if I do not there would beproblems.How well does this reason describe your experience? [Show card]


6.2 1 2 3 4

2. So people approve of me. I do this because people around me approve of me and respect mefor doing so. If I did not I might feel guilty and ashamed.How well does this reason describe your experience? [Show card]


6.3 1 2 3 4

3. I think it is important. I do this work because I personally believe it is important andvaluable. How well does this reason describe your experience? [Show card].


6.4 1 2 3 4

4. I deeply and freely support this. I considered various options for how to handle thehousework and who should do it. I value our arrangements.

How well does this reason describe your experience? [Show card]not at all true not very true somewhat true completely true

6.5 1 2 3 4

Section 7: Intra-Household Decision-making and Health

7.1 When decisions are made regarding the following aspects of household life, who is it thatnormally takes the decision?

1 Respondent2 Husband3 Respondent and Husband Jointly4 Adult family members5 Any other adult member6 Other [Specify and add code: ______________________]

Household Education Political Marriage Religious Healthexpenditure decisions* choices beliefs+

200

*Political Decisions: voting, party affiliation, campaigning, and standing for election;+Religious beliefs: going to temple/place of worship, praying at home, fasting, festivals

Enumerator: If all are 1, skip to question 7.3. Otherwise ask 7.2 only for those boxes where theanswer is not 1.

7.2 To what degree do you feel you can make your own personal decisions regarding these issuesif you want to?

1 To a very high degree2 To a fairly high degree3 To a small degree4 Not at all

Household Education Political Marriage Religious Healthexpenditure decisions choices beliefs

7.3 How did you or how would you respond to a serious health problem for yourself or yourfamily?

1. Did not do anything2. Went to a NGO or other medical centre3. Went to a healer / ayurveda / homeopathy / siddha4. Went to a Government health center.5. Went to a Government hospital.6 Went to a private doctor or hospital7 Other ________________________________________[add code]

Now I am going to describe possible reasons that you respond this way to health crises.Please tell me how true each reason is.

0 No Control: I do not have the ability to Project the health of myself or my family.not at all true not very true somewhat true completely true

7.4 1 2 3 4

1 External pressure: If there is a health problem, I do whatever my spouse or someoneelse suggests.

not at all true not very true somewhat true completely true7.5 1 2 3 4

2 Others’ Opinion: If there is a health problem in our family, I act in the way thatothers expect and approve of. A good person should behave this way.


201

3 Important: If there is a health problem, I do what I believe is important and right.not at all true not very true somewhat true completely true

7.7 1 2 3 4

4 Freely: If there is a problem, I consider various alternatives and do what fits with ourvalues and situation – whether it is to treat it at home or in hospital or elsewhere.


7.9 How would you rate your overall health status?1 Very Good2 Good3 Worse

7.10 Have you suffered from any illness during the past two weeks?:1 Yes2 No

7.11 Have you suffered from any illness during the last one year?:1 Yes2 No

Section 8. Mobility

8.1 Where do you go on your own?

1 Everywhere I want to2 Some places I want to3. Nowhere

When you move around the community or stay inside the house, why do you do so? I willdescribe different responses; please tell me how true each is. [Show card]

0 No Control. I am not able to go out at all OR I have to work – I have no option of stayinghome. How well does this describe your experience? [Show card]


8.2 1 2 3 4

1 External Pressure. I need to have permission in order to go out. How well does this describeyour experience? [Show card]


8.3 1 2 3 4

2 So people approve of me. I need to be careful when I go out so that people do not speak badlyabout me.How well does this describe your experience? [Show card]


8.4 1 2 3 4

3 I do what is important. If it is important to go out I will do so no matter what.

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How well does this describe your experience? [Show card]not at all true not very true somewhat true completely true

8.5 1 2 3 4

4 I am free to move around. If I want to go out (or to stay in for that matter) I am able to thinkabout it and freely decide to do what seems best. There are no restrictions on me in this respect.How well does this describe your experience? [Show card]


8.6 1 2 3 4

Section 9: Organizational assets

9.1 Which groups are you a member of at present? Enumerator: do not read this list!!! If theystruggle give examples: political, religious, self-help group, etc.

1 Kudumbashree2 Agriculture/Fishing cooperative3 Other production group4 Traders Association5 Professional Association (teachers, health workers, VEOs)6 Trade Union7 Religious or spiritual group (e.g. church, mosque, temple, informal religious group,

religious study group)8 Political group or movement9 Cultural group or association (e.g. arts, music, theatre, film, sports, library)10 Residence Association11 Finance, Chit funds, credit or savings group12 Education group (e.g. parent-teacher association, school committee)13 Health group14 Youth group15 NGO or civic group16 Caste-based community group17 Other groups [Please specify in table below and add code]

[Code][Code]

[Enumerator: List all categories of organization/groups]

9.2 Have you ever held office in any of these groups?1 Yes2 No

9.3 Which of these organizations/groups are the most important to you? Please specify up tothree. Please rank (1=most important)

Org/group 1 Org/group 2 Org/group 3

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9.4 Why does the group or groups you mention stay together?

1. External Pressure. We need the benefits these groups give me - or we are under pressure tomeet.How well does this reason describe your experience? [Show card]


9.5 1 2 3 4

2. So people approve of me. We do this because everyone else is doing it, and it is a populargroup to be a part of.How well does this reason describe your experience? [Show card]


9.6 1 2 3 4

3. I think it is important. We stay together because we know we can benefit by workingtogether and think it is important and valuable to cooperate. How well does this reason describeyour experience? [Show card].


9.7 1 2 3 4

4. I deeply and freely support this. We meet because we draw strength from being together. Wefeel this group healps us to grow into the people we want to become. How well does this reasondescribe your experience? [Show card]


9.8 1 2 3 4

Section 10: Aspiration

10.1 Is Would you like to change anything in your life

1 Yes2 No

10.2 What three thing(s) would you most like to change? [List up to 3 areas/things add codes]

A: [Code]B: [Code]C: [Code]

Who do you think will contribute most to any change in your own life?

[Enumerator: list up to 2 reasons]

1 Myself2 My family3 Our group [Specify and add code: ________________________]1 Our community2 The local government

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3 The state government4 Other [Specify and add code: ________________________]

10.3 Do you feel that people like yourself can generally change things in your community ifthey want to?

1 Yes, very easily2 Yes, fairly easily3 Yes, but with a little difficulty4 Yes, but with a great deal of difficulty5 No, not at all

10.4 Please imagine a nine-step ladder where on the bottom, the first step, stand peoplewho are completely without power, and on the highest step, the ninth, stand those whohave a lot of power. On which step are you today?

(1 to 9)

Concluding Question 10.5: Some people believe that individuals can decide their own destiny,while others think that it is impossible to escape a predetermined fate. Many think it is both, tosome extent. Please tell me which comes closest to your view. One means “everything in life isdetermined by fate,” and 5 means that “people shape their fate themselves.” Three means half andhalf. 2 means, mostly fate, and 4 means mostly people’s own work.

Everything is mostly half & mostly People shape their fatedetermined by fate fate half ours to shape

1 2 3 4 5

Thank you very much for taking part in this survey. We will reflect upon your responses, andthey will help us to serve. We would like to ask you some final questions and would appreciateany comments you have about the survey or the way it was conducted.

11.1 We asked you a lot of questions using the card with the numbers. We are usingthese questions in other places also. How easy was it for you to respond to thesequestions? Do you have any advice for us on these questions?

____________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

11.2 Is there anything you would like to ask me or the research team, or anycomments you have? [List and add code]

A: [Code]B: [Code]

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Once again, thank you very much for your time and effort.

Enumerator: Notes about this interview:

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5 = Supernatural, Heroic Empowerment4 = Fully empowered3 = Moderately empowered2 = Somewhat empowered1 = Disempowered

Empowered = able to act on behalfof what matters to you – what you value.

Respondent ID Number: ______________________

Facilitator’s Insights on the Domain Measure:Please rank each domain from 1-5 in your view, withoutand also add explanations from the interview. Use theback of this sheet for any additional notes on thisrespondent.

Education Rank:

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Employment Rank:________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Household Work Rank:_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Health Rank:________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Mobility Rank:________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Group / Organizational Assets Rank:________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

MEASURING INDIVIDUAL AGENCY OR EMPOWERMENT ......– Manu Smrti. Centre for Development Studies,...

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Transcript of MEASURING INDIVIDUAL AGENCY OR EMPOWERMENT ......– Manu Smrti. Centre for Development Studies,...