The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) provides important data on indicators crucial for measuring women’s empowerment in India. On the occasion of the International Women’s Day, we look at a few important indicators and their progress between NFHS-4 and NFHS-5. International Women’s Day is celebrated annually on 08 March to honour and recognize the achievements and contributions of women worldwide. The day is dedicated to raising awareness about gender equality and advocating for women’s rights. It provides an opportunity to reflect on progress made, acknowledge challenges, and call for continued efforts to ensure equality in all aspects of life. The theme for International Women’s Day may vary each year, reflecting the evolving priorities and concerns in the global effort towards gender equality. The theme for 2024 declared by the United Nations is “Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress,” which underscores the significance of gender equality, women’s and girls’ empowerment, and their rights to healthier lives. Observing Women’s Day serves as a reminder of the ongoing pursuit of Sustainable Development Goal 5, fostering a world where gender equality prevails, and women and girls are empowered in every facet of life. It emphasizes the need to end discrimination, violence, and harmful practices based on gender. The goal aims to ensure equal opportunities, rights, and participation for women in all aspects of life, including education, employment, and decision-making processes. NFHS captures data on Women’s Empowerment related indicators as well The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) is instrumental in capturing comprehensive data crucial for women’s empowerment in India. Six key factors are assessed. These include ownership of physical assets like bank accounts, land and housing, and mobile phones. Participation in critical household decisions like healthcare for themselves, household purchases, and visits to family or relatives is also considered in the survey. The employment status of women over the past year and access to menstrual hygiene products have also been assessed in the survey. While not exhaustive, these indicators offer valuable insights into the status of women in India and help identify specific areas for targeted interventions and policy improvements. In this story, we look at how states perform in some of these indicators pertaining to decision-making and ownership of physical assets as per the latest NFHS-5 (2019-21) and the progress since the previous NFHS-4 (2015-16). The data for this analysis has been taken from Dataful. It should be noted that the specific age group for women surveyed is often defined as 15 to 49 years (considered reproductive age group), unless otherwise mentioned. Target 5.A of SDG 5 aims to “undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance, and natural resources.” In line with this SDG, the NFHS report assesses the share of women owning a house and/or land be it alone or jointly with others. Only one in five women owned land or house in Delhi At the national level, only about 43% of the women-owned a house/land. The share was about 38% in urban areas and over 45% in rural areas. Huge variation is visible across states despite the equal rights to inherit property across genders and encouraging women to own property through government policies like PMAY. While nearly two-thirds of the women in states like Karnataka and Telangana owned property, the share was just around 22% in Delhi (about one-fifth). At least half the women owned property in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Punjab in contrast to less than a quarter in Maharashtra, West Bengal, and Uttarakhand. Further, the share of women owning property has dropped in 16 states/UTs in five years between the fourth and fifth rounds of the NFHS. These include Odisha, Maharashtra, Delhi, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, and Bihar. Significant improvement in share of women holding bank accounts Having a bank account is a tangible indication of women’s empowerment, signifying financial autonomy, access to resources, and active participation in economic decision-making. The NFHS report provides details of the share of women in the said age group holding a bank or savings account that they use. There has been a significant improvement on this front in five years. At the national level, the share of women owning and operating a bank account was about 53% in 2015-16, which increased to 78.6% in 2019-21.