The role of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act on women empowerment in selected districts of West Bengal, India

Women’s participation in employment sectors is significantly lower than men, besides most women are actively engaged in domestic household work without pay. The current study focuses on the role of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act on women empowerment in the selected districts of West Bengal. The data for the study were obtained from the MGNREGA web portal. A Panel Least Squares regression model was employed to measure the impact of MGNREGA on the average annual per capita income of women. This study depicts that the number of women and women’s annual working-days have increased by 27.07 and 28.08% respectively since the financial year 2015–2016 in West Bengal. Similarly, the per capita income of women has increased by 52.19% during the same period. The correlation coefficient value of women’s working-days revealed that one unit increase in women’s working-days leads to an 11.611 unit rise in women’s average annual per capita income when all other factors are kept constant. Finally, the study suggests that more women’s participation in MGNREGA will improve the social and economic status of women in rural West Bengal.