Women Empowerment and their Role in Ensuring Household Food Security in Mymensingh Division of Bangladesh

The study was carried out to determine the womenempowerment,their role in household food security of the districts of Mymensingh division in Bangladesh. The study also emphasized to explore the influence of women empowerment status on household food security, food consumption pattern. A total of 200 women from four selected districts (Mymensingh, Sherpur,Netrokona,Jamalpur) were interviewed for the study.Most of the participants are of bangali (98%) ethnicity; and follower of Islam religion (95%). When the respondents were classified according to their occupation, most of them found to be housewives (77.3%). The study found an overall empowerment score of 42.61+13.31 (Mean+SD) in a range of 0-100. The study reveals that 41.8% of the households are severely food insecure, whereas 43.2% are moderately food insecure. It observed that, households with empowered women are more food secure than household with less empowered women (p=0.02). a positive relation was found for empowerment score with food consumption score (r=0.190). The study reveals empowerment of vulnerable women group is significantly associated with the food security and dietary consumption of the corresponding households. The study suggest further research to determine the cause-effect relationship of these factors, confounding factors that may influence the relationship and specific aspects of empowerment of women that effectively influence the food security, dietary consumption and nutrition profile at larger community