Urban-Suburban Disparity in Program Effectiveness Fostering Self-Reliance Among Indian Sex-Workers
Ray, Mona
2020
2020-2029
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a few non�governmental organizations (NGOs) helping the sex workers to become self�reliant in West Bengal, India. A stratified random sampling method was adapted to survey 400 sex�workers using a structured survey questionnaire. A Program Effectiveness Index (PEI) is developed to measure the level of disparity in the effectiveness of these NGOs operating in the urban vs. suburban areas of West Bengal, India. The effectiveness is manifested through the level of self�reliance achieved by the participating sex�workers. The self�reliance gap between the participating sex workers in the two regions is measured by the weighted average status gap (WASG) using several social, economic, psychological, political, and legal status indicators. The estimated Program Effectiveness Index value of 66.16 indicates disparity in effectiveness of the intervention programs between the two regions. A negative WASG value implies the suburban sex�workers to be more self�reliant than the urban sex�workers, mainly in their �economic' and �health' status. A simple sensitivity analysis suggests how policy makers can benchmark a certain rate of progress per year to achieve zero disparity within a set number of years. The index developed in this paper can provide a guideline for the policy makers as to where, on a scale of 0 to 100, the disparity is desirable to achieve the targeted balance in regional development. This kind of findings could be relevant for policy makers in allocating resources to programs in different regions to achieve desired outcomes. No attempt has been found in any prior studies to compare the effectiveness of the intervention programs operating in different regions in creating self�reliance among the sex�workers. In that sense, the current research is a novel approach trying to quantitatively measure the regional disparity in effectiveness of the intervention programs targeted specifically for sex�workers. The index developed in this paper measures the extent of disparity in the effectiveness of the programs through the difference in the level of self�reliance of the sex� workers while geographically separated into the urban and sub�urban areas.
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Morehouse College Faculty Publications
Morehouse College
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12322/mc.ir.fac.pub:2020_ray_mona
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/
