Decision Making by Urban Women: A Case Study of Karnal (Haryana)

As women constitute half of the world population, it is essential to involve women in the decision making process. Participation of women in decision making at all levels is the need of the hour. Though women participation has been growing overtime,yet it is far from satisfactory level. In India, it is not only minimal rather very complex. As household is the basic unit of any economy,it becomes essential to examine the role of women in decision making within a household. Decisions of household ultimately affect the whole economy, therefore the present study tries to analyse basically the role of urban women in decision making in the household economy. It attempts to explain the role of urban working and non-working women in Karnal district of Haryana state from different dimensions. The study is basically descriptive and emphasis has been laid on status of women and comparative study of both the Categories. The study employs uniform disproportionate stratified sampling technique to collect relevant information. Fifty working and fifty Non-working women were selected as sample for the study. To analyse the urban women's decision making power, thirty major decision areas have been identified.