A Scale to Assess Livelihood Security of Rural Women under Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission

Abstract

Livelihood security is a vital aspect of rural development, particularly for women who form the core of Self-Help Groups (SHGs) under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM). This study aimed to develop and standardize a scale to assess the livelihood security of rural women beneficiaries under DAY-NRLM in Chitradurga district. Following the summated rating scale procedures proposed by Likert (1932) and Edwards (1969), an initial pool of 57 statements was generated through expert consultation and literature review. After applying the editing criteria outlined by Edwards (1969) and Thurstone and Chave (1929), 55 statements were retained and evaluated for relevancy by 95 judges, resulting in 54 valid items. These statements were pre-tested in a non-sample area (Balepura village, Devanahalli taluk, Bengaluru Rural district) and item discrimination was assessed through the criterion group method using the t-test. Forty-seven statements with critical ratios of 1.69 or above were subjected to reliability testing. The scale demonstrated high reliability with correlation coefficient of 0.959 and “r” value of 0.978, significant at the one per cent level. The validity coefficient of 0.989 exceeded the acceptable threshold of 0.70, confirming the scale’s soundness across economic, food and nutrition, health, social, ecological, psychological and physical dimensions. When administered to 32 randomly selected rural women beneficiaries under DAY-NRLM in a non-sample area, the scale revealed that 46.87 per cent of rural women had average livelihood security, 34.38 per cent had better livelihood security and 18.75 per cent fell into the poor livelihood security category. The finalized 47-statement scale is thus robust, reliable and suitable for assessing livelihood security among rural women under DAY-NRLM.