Factors Affecting Women’s Economic Empowerment: A Case Of Ilfeta Woreda Of West Shoa Zone, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

Gender imbalance in different area is one of the current critical issues that requires immediate intervention and implementation of gender mainstreaming to correct it. In line with that, this study focused on to examine factors affecting women’s economic empowerment in Ilfeta Woreda. To gather the necessary data, the study employed questionnaires, interview and document review. To collect primary data by using simple random sampling one hundred forty two respondents were sampled from selected of three kebeles and eight interviewers were selected for in depth interview from three woreda government offices. Data analyses were done thematically by classi fying and categorized the content of the data and encoded in a way it analyzed using SPSS soft ware version 20.0. The research design was a cross-sectional research design and the study em ployed both descriptive and inferential statistics for data analysis. In these analysis simple fre quencies, percent, cross tabulation, correlation and regression were used to analyze the data. The data gathered through in depth interview and document was considered by narration. The findings of the study indicated that, there was correlation between the observed value of women’s economic development (dependent variable) and the optimal combinations of independent varia bles. sex, family size, education level, cultural practice, work separation and awareness of community has the significant relation with women’s economic empowerment in the study ar ea.The study draws out major Factors affecting women’s economic empowerment in Ilfeta wore da. These factors are age, sex, education, family size, marital status, level of income, saving cul ture, credit service, cultural practice, work separation, land owner, livestock owner and aware ness of community. Lack of commitment on the part of woreda government body, cultural practice and lack of awareness about gender issue were the major challenges identified in the study. The study also indicated social work separations in the case of daily working hours, domestic works and unpaid works were caused to low level of income and affected women’s economic develop ment in the area. Unless implementation of programs and projects are designed at national level in general and at the woreda level in particular; the mere presence of policy and strategic docu ments do not make sense as far as the issu