Patani, M. (1998). Study of Decision Making Power of Working and Household Women. Unpublished. Ph.D., Home Sciences,Education. Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya.
The objectives of the study were: (1) To study the decision making power of educated and uneducated working and household women. (2) To know the decision making power of house wives of unemployed husbands. (3) To know the priorities of types of decision have educated and non-educated working and nonworking house wives. (4) To know whether the decision making power among working and household women can be developed.
Hypotheses stated were: (1) Uneducated household and working women will have less Knowledge about the process of decision making than educated household and working women. (2) Uneducated working and non-working housewives do not decide the criteria of decision making while educated working and nonworking housewives take decisions on the basis of criteria. (3) Decisions taken by uneducated working and nonworking housewives are at least accepted by their family members. (4) Decision taking power of the housewives doing mental work is greater than those doing working physical work. (5) Educated working and nonworking housewives take decisions on the basis of common sense more than uneducated working and nonworking housewives. (6) Group decisions are taken less in the families of uneducated working and nonworking housewives than their counter parts. (7) Housewives have high level of decision taking power in case when husbands are unemployed. (8) Uneducated working housewives give more importance to economic decisions than educated working housewives. (9) Working housewives give more importance to technical and social decisions as compare to non-working housewives. (10) Uneducated housewives give more importance to legal decisions than educated housewives. (11) Decision power can be more developed among educated working and nonworking housewives as compared to their counter parts. (12) More interaction is found in decision making process in the families of working women while less interaction is found in case of housewives. (13) Decision taking power of educated and uneducated housewives increases as a result of increase in age and income. (14) Women having college education have more decision taking power than those having school education.
The sample consisted of 550 housewives including educated and uneducated working and nonworking and the housewives whose husbands were unemployed.
The tool was developed by investigator in form of A.B, C forms.
The nature of the study was survey.
The content analysis and percentage were used to analyze the data.
The findings of the study were: (1) Decisions in case of educated working, uneducated working and educated housewives are taken by the concern of husband and wife both while in case of uneducated housewives the husband play an important role. (2) Educated families give importance to their children in group decisions. (3) The educated housewives doing physical work have more decision power than uneducated housewives doing physical work while educated housewives doing mental work have more decision power than uneducated housewives doing mental work. (4) Educated housewives have more decision taking power than uneducated housewives while working housewives have more decision taking power than nonworking housewives. (5) Educated working housewives give more importance to economic decisions, uneducated working housewives give importance to legal decisions and educated and non-educated housewives give more importance to social decisions. (6) Educated working and nonworking housewives take decisions more on the basis of common sense and thinking. They use some criteria for taking decisions give emphasis on group decisions and their family members generally accept their decisions. (7) In case of unemployed husbands, husband and wife both have same importance in decision taking. (8) Educated working housewives take less legal decisions and more technical decisions while uneducated working housewives take less technical decisions and more legal decisions. (9) Most increase in decisions taking power was found among the educated working housewives as a result of training, secondly among educated nonworking housewives, thirdly among uneducated nonworking housewives and least increase was found among uneducated working women. (10) Decision taking power of educated and uneducated housewives increases as a result of increase in age and income. Increase in level of education also affects the decision power positively.
Keyword(s): Decision Making Power , Household Women,