ASSESSING GENDER ROLE IN DECISION MAKING REGARDING SOCIOECONOMIC ACTIVITIES IN RURAL PUNJAB

The Pakistan society is male dominated and all matters concerning outside home are usually dealt with by the male members. The women remain busy in household chores and other domestic works. However, the women in the rural areas perform a number of functions out of household such as participation in agricultural operations including crop production, looking after the farm animals and collection of fuel wood for domestic use and fetching water from distance. But the participation of women folk in socio-economic activities seems to be not encouraging. Therefore, a study was conducted to assess gender role regarding socio-economic activities in rural Punjab. District Chakwal was selected as the universe of the research study. A snap shot survey research was conducted for collection of data. A well thought/conceived and pre-coded instrument of data collection (interview schedule) was applied in the field. The data were analyzed by using SPSS. The results showed that Majority (about 71%) of females (wives) in rural area of the Punjab and especially in rain fed area consulted their husbands to larger extent regarding family maters, where as on the other hand, their husbands either do not consult of consult at very low extent (about 8%) in family matters. Females were more involved in deciding process on family matters followed by farm, social and economic matters. Female respondents reported that husbands were the main decision makers (about 90%) in the family. However, on the overall situation, the female respondents reported that the highest involvement of their husbands in decision-making was in family matters, education of children and their marriages. Patriarchy; cultural values and ego were main constraints of limiting the role of women in decision making of socio-economic activities in rural Punjab. It is suggested that females should be more motivated in taking better decisions in sectors of agricultural marketing, economic matters and farm operations on priority basis and females working together with males by consulting with one another in household and farm activities should be educated to the male and female children in educational institutions.