Women’s Participation in Economic Activities: A comparative study for members and non-members of the micro-credit organizations

The study was aimed to examine the present status of rural women’s participation in various economic activities in Bangladesh. The sample of the study consisted of 92 farm women (among them 50% were members of micro-credit NGOs and 50% were nonmembers) from Dhulgari village of Pirgonj upazila under Rangpur district. Necessary data for the study were collected using interview schedule by personal interviewing of the respondent women. Result showed that among agricultural activities rural women’s participation was relatively higher in various post harvest activities and livestock management activities compared to other agricultural activities. On the other side, their participation was almost nil in the case of aquaculture activities. The result of the regression analysis explored that personal annual income of the women has the highest influence on their extent of participation in EAs.