Kameswari, V.L.V.Rachit Raj2021-12-242021-12-242021-12https://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810179814Women comprise 33 % of agriculture labour force and 48% of the self-employed farmers. In India, 85% of rural women were engaged in agriculture, yet only about 13% own land. For the last three decades, many policymaking institutions are influenced by the idea of feminization of poverty. It has become very important to focus on women for gender-sensitive poverty alleviation. Looking at the poverty alleviation programmes over the years, a clear shift is visible in the thinking of the development planners and policy makers in the nature of employment to be generated. Women empowerment refers to increasing the economic, political, socialand legal strength of individuals and communities of women so that they become capable of exercising their choices. SHGs and micro enterprises play a significant role in changing the socio-economiccondition of women and their empowerment. This study attempted to find socio-economic, psychological and communication characteristics, extent of empowerment of SHG members, the relationship between characteristics of SHG members and their empowerment and the constraints faced by SHG members. A descriptive research design was used to meet the objectives of the study. The study was conducted in Udham Singh Nagar district of Uttarakhand. Khatima block was selected purposively. Out of 986 SHGs in Khatima block, Ten SHGs were selected randomly. Fifty per cent of SHG members were selected as respondents for the purpose of the study through random sampling. Pre tested interview schedule was used for data collection. The findings of the study revealed that most of the respondents were in middle age group(52%), belonged to Schedule Castes (34.50%) and had intermediate level of education (25.55%). Majority of respondents were part of medium size joint family (67.77) and owned less than 1.5 acres of land (56%). Maximum numbers of head of the households were engaged in farming (47.77%) and majority of the respondents were housewives (82.22%). Majority of the respondents had medium level of economic motivation(90%), assertiveness (50%), leadership ability(96%), and low level of information seeking behavior (63.33%), social participation (100%), Majority of respondents had access to mobile phones (97.77%), TV (90%) and radio (58.88%). It was found that majority of respondents had high level of social and economic empowerment (91.12% and 60%, respectively), medium level of psychological and political empowerment (80% and 51.11%, respectively) and low level of legal empowerment (76.66%). All respondents had high level of cultural empowerment and majority of respondents had medium level of overall empowerment (54.44%). The findings regarding relationship between selected characteristics of SHG members and extent empowerment revealed that age and education had significant relationship with their empowerment. Age had negative association and education had positive association with empowerment. It was found that family size, size of land holding, occupation, monthly family income, economic motivation, leadership ability, social participation, mass media ownership and use and information seeking behaviour were positively related to the extent of empowerment but the association was not significant. All members reported lack of training, absence of market for sale of their products and very little income as constraints. Majority of respondents reported very small loan amount, lack of support from financial institutions and lack of social mobility as the other constraints.EnglishThesis