Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is one of the most ambitious social protection programs in India that guarantees 100 days of employment every year to every rural household. The context of MGNREGA is appreciated not just for income generation but also because of the large-scale potential it has to empower women. A woman who is able to have her income, pursue considerable social mobility, and participate in some of the decisions related to her life would be an empowered woman. Consequently, this study seeks to explore the relative empowerment level of female MGNREGA participants vis-à-vis female non-MGNREGA workers in Deoghar district of Jharkhand. The score of empowerments was then assessed on three parameters--economic, social, and psychological--in comparative case studies on about 240 women in the six Bhata blocks with the help of standardised measures of empowerment. Based on the extent of the empowerment generated, there is certainly a sharp line between those women involved in wage employment with MGNREGA and those falling out of its reach. In fact, lagging is the category of women left out of the scheme. On the other hand, the central study showed that some of the individuals who had worked with MGNREGA had a higher level of empowerment in decisions about earning income and ownership over assets, with participation improving mobility as well. The distributed and diverse empowerment yield for social strata, educational levels, and household structures indicates that the single act of MGNREGA participation is not sufficient for empowerment. This study suggests novel ways in which wage work contributes to the status of women while also detailing the long-standing obstacles to the real transformative potential of MGNREGA. The immense implications of these findings rest in drawing better strategies for implementation and support activities that would strengthen the program's impact on women's empowerment in rural areas.
Priyanka Kashyap (2026) studied this question.