visakhapatnam various parameters of the women empowerment indicator in andhra pradesh have improved between 3 and 17 in the fifth national family health survey nfhs5 201920 compared to nfhs4 201516the empowerment indicator is based on various parameters such as womens participation in household decisionmaking owning a house or land having a bank account using their own mobile phones and using hygienic protection during menstrual cycleanother related key indicator that of genderbased violence has also come down compared to last survey whereby spousal violence has reduced by 13in the womens empowerment indicator the survey found that 841 married women aged 1549 years participate in household decisions showing a 4 increase since the last survey women owning houseland either alone or jointly came to 478 an increase of 3 women having a bank or savings account that they operate themselves is 818 more than 14 increase since nfhs4the percentage of women having and using their own mobile phones was found to be 489 an increase of 13the percentage young women aged 1524 years who use hygienic protection methods during their menstruation cycles was 851 a rise of 175 however women who worked in the last one year and were paid in cash remains unchanged at 421 in 50 of these parameters like participating in household decisions working for cash owning a houseland rural women scored better than their urban counterpartsas for the other key indicator of genderbased violence married women aged 1849 years who have ever experienced spousal violence was high at 30 despite registering a decrease of 134 since nfhs4around 38 women have experienced physical violence during pregnancy compared to 49 in nfhs4 the percentage of young women aged 1829 years who have experienced sexual violence by age 18 has reduced from 68 in nfhs4 to 37