Status of women's empowerment and fertility behaviour of the muslims in rural West Bengal

This paper tries to examine the nexus between the level of women empowerment and the fertility behaviour of Muslims in rural West Bengal. The study is conducted in six selected CD blocks of Murshidabad district of West Bengal. The present study has been done based on primary data supplemented by data from secondary sources. The target group of the sample population is Muslim married women in the reproductive age group 15-49 years. Data has been analysed using statistical software (SPSS). Similarly, GIS software (ArcGIS 10.3) is used for mapping. The result of the study shows a negative association between women empowerment and fertility behaviour for Muslims in the study area. The empowerment status of Muslim Women is found to be quite poor in the study area; it has a positive relation with the fertility behaviour of the Muslims in West Bengal.