Impact of Education on the Social Life of Married Women in the Rural Community of Bangladesh

Abstract

Education opens the door of opportunities for all. It plays important role for developing women’s social life. Although the rate of female participation in all levels of education is increasing, due to patriarchal social system in Bangladesh women are often victims of early marriage, gender discrimination, gender based violence, religious dogmatism, frequent child bearing, unwanted pregnancy, access to resources, income generating activities and access to participate in political and cultural activities. In this regard, education is very essential for enhancing women’s social life status. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of education on the empowerment of women’s social life in the rural community. In this research, the researcher showed various aspects of women empowerment and how educational attainment affects on various aspects of women’s social life; for instance, giving opinion regarding marriage, decision making capacity, protesting gender based violence, freedom in social life activities etc. The researcher adopted human capital and human capabilities theory in this research. Human capital approach is an essential instrument that focuses on women’s education. The capabilities approach focuses on how education enhances the wellbeing and the empowerment of women. This study was conducted through mixed method research design particularly convergent parallel mixed method by applying both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Purposive sampling technique was followed for selecting the sample. The total sample size was 444 consisting of married women and key informants, where grade V completers were 108, 108 SSC completers, 108 HSC completers and 108 Graduate women respectively. There were total 12 respondents who were considered as key informant and their status was primary school head teacher, NGO professional and local government representative who were selected from four different districts. Survey questionnaire was used for collecting quantitative data and in-depth interview schedule was used for collecting qualitative data. IBM SPSS 20 and Microsoft excel 10 were used for analyzing quantitative data, the data were analyzed in descriptive methods like percentage and frequency etc. To find the significance of the response the researcher also used inferential statistical techniques like chi-square tests and then presented into table and graphical form. On the other hand, the researcher used thematic analysis procedure for analyzing qualitative data. According to the study findings, child marriage rate is still high in the rural areas. Generally, parents do not take opinion from their daughters regarding marriage. Due to less educational qualification (i.e. grade V completers and SSC completers) women have very limited access to participate in familial decision making activities; for this reason, they cannot continue their study after marriage. In rural areas, these women also have limited access to participate in socio cultural and political activities. They are still not much aware about family planning and they have no individual choice of using contraceptives. They have to depend on their partners’ decision. Lower educated women also have limited access to move frequently outside the house, they are remaining captivated through religious dogmatism and social prejudices. In rural area, lower educated women have limited access to self-health care and they can hardly take any decision regarding their children’s education. They also have limited access to income generating activities and for this reason, they are not enough economically empowered. This study also found that, those women who have higher educational status have more access to the empowerment process. According to the study findings, those women who have completed HSC and graduation enjoy more freedom in every aspect of their social life than SSC and Grade V completers. They have their own professional choices, access to income generating activities, access to health care services and contraceptive choices. Due to their educational qualification, they also have decision-making power regarding their marriage, children’s education, income-expenditure and skill development activities. They enjoy the freedom of participating in socio cultural activities and political activities. This study revealed that, those women who have more educational qualification are entitled with improved social life status than who have less educational qualification. Thus, it showed that education plays important role for changing social life status and work as a change agent for empowering women. It transforms women into human capital and enables them to be more economically and strategically empowered that enhance their participation in family, socio-cultural and political activities. Though this research revealed that education has a great impact on women’s social life, but still in the rural areas women are frequently victims of violence, child marriage and gender based violence. There are existing strong laws- dowry prevention act, women and child repression prevention act 2000, domestic violence (prevention and protection) act 2010 etc. and also for women development Bangladesh Government made National Women Development Policy 2011. But their implications are still in limitations. Hence government and other stakeholders need to initiate more awareness programs to aware mass people about the punishment of dowry and domestic violence. To attain the sustainable development goals like gender equality, decent work and economic growth quality education is very essential in this regards. So the government and other stakeholders need to be launched more effective initiatives and monitoring system to stop early marriage and dropped out from mid-level of their education and also need to create second chance of education through non-formal education system for rural women along with implementation of existing policies and programs.