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The study aims to examine the women empowerment in rural areas of Punjab, Pakistan. The current paper contributes to the literature by presenting the empirical evidence of women empowerment in agriculture. Women empowerment in agriculture index (WEAI) was used for measuring women empowerment of the 300 rural households. Primary data were collected from three (3) districts of the Punjab province. The quantitative data analyzed by using appropriate statistical techniques. The results of the study showed disempowerment of women in agriculture with varying degree in all three selected regions of Punjab. The WEAI results for the Central Punjab (Jhang) is 0.034. It is the average weighted score of the five empowerment domains (5DE) value of sub-index is 0.689 and the Gender parity index (GPI) sub-index value of 0.686. Results for South Punjab (D.G.Khan) is 0.578. The weighted score of the sub-index value of 5DE is 0.498 and the sub-index value of GPI is 0.782, and for North Punjab (Chakwal) is 0.784 and the average weighted score of the sub-index value of 5DE is 0.745 and the sub-index value of GPI is 0.598. The empowerment gap between men and women in the same household is relatively momentous at 26.9 and 36.9% in Central and South Punjab but less significant in North Punjab at 53.8%. A strong correlation between age of the household, education and empowerment was found. Lack of control over income and lack of control over resources are found as the domains that contribute most to women disempowerment. Lack of leadership in community and lack of availability of time domains that contribute most to men disempowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research comprehensively examined the contributions of households' critical influence factors (CRIFs) in BGT utilization. The data based on a sample of 695 households from seven selected districts of Punjab province of Pakistan. The empirical findings are: first, among the households' preference based CRIFs, cooking as a utilization mode imparted positive and significant influence on BGT utilization. It implicated that cooking was found to be the dominant preference of households to utilize the BGT. Moreover, the health risk factor was exposed to be important in BGT utilization. This is likely for people to attach importance to their health. Second, dual nature of the influence of gender is observed: (i) it emphasized the role of woman empowerment in choice of BGT, and also, (ii) as the females need to spend extra time in fuel collection, they want to switch to BGT. Third, concerning the socio-economic and infrastructural influence factors, the education of both household head and chef portrayed a positive influence on BGT utilization. Moreover, households with relatively more land ownership and livestock were more probable to utilize BGT. Finally, the users of the BGT experienced the financial, health, environmental protection, and crop harvest benefits as compared to non-users of BGT. • Examined households-based critical influence factors of biogas generation technology (BGT) utilization. • A propensity score matching technique has been adopted for influence assessment. • Found significant positive contributions of households' preference-based influence factors. • Identified contributions of socioeconomic and infrastructural influence factors. • Cooking as a utilization mode and health risk factor exposed positive impact on BGT utilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since early years of the 20th century, feminism has built a body of theory and in recent decades' women empowerment has been suggested as a mechanism to improve the quality of women's work as well as their personal lives. The empowerment of women is an essential precondition for the elimination of world poverty and the upholding of human rights. Women are about half of the population of Pakistan, they are active participants in every walk of life. But women participation as extension workers was discouraged in agriculture sector, extension wing due to field work nature of this job as it was considered as male oriented job only. Later on, during the last years of the first decade of this century the hiring of female extension workers by the Department of Agriculture (Extension and Adaptive Research) Government of the Punjab, Pakistan become a possibility. The study was conducted at Institute of Agri. Extension and Rural Development, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan during 2018-19. All the female agriculture officials working in agriculture extension, livestock and poultry sectors were the population of the study. In first step through proportionate stratified sampling technique 49 respondents from agriculture extension, 64 from livestock and 17 respondents from poultry sector were taken forming a sample size of 130 respondents. In second step, the respondents were randomly selected from each stratum. The data were collected from selected respondents through pretested interview schedule. The quantitative data and qualitative data were analyzed, and the data revealed that most of the respondents belonged to middle age group having master's degree and 1-3-year experience, half of the respondents were married with non-farming background. The major social constraints faced by the respondents in the field were identified as: male dominance, non-acceptance (unrecognition) as working lady, family responsibilities and harassment issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]