Socio-economic status of tribal women: A study of Kalahandi district, Odisha

Abstract

A tribe is a social group with territorial ties, endogamy, and no functional specialization. Tribal leaders, whether hereditary or not, are unified by language or dialect and are aware of social distance without any social obloquy attaching to them as it does in the caste structure, with other tribes and castes. The main objective of the study was to study the socio-economic status of tribal women of Kalahandi region. Samples of 300 tribal women were purposively selected from 10 villages of two blocks i.e. Lanjigadh and M.Rampur block of Kalahandi district, Odisha. Ex-post facto research design was used for the study and Interview schedule was used for data collection. Usual statistical methods were used for data analysis. The results revealed that, majority of the respondents belong to young age group and were illiterate. Most of the respondents belong to nuclear family, their family size was small, had no land and their major occupation was labour work and their annual family income was Rs. 30,001-40,000/-.