Gender equality is a key component of human development, but Nepal still has gender gap in overall
sector. This paper identifies the changing gender status in Nepal and its achievements and challenges
based on Censuses data and others. The paper shows trend and pattern analysis of data from
census 1981, 1991, 2001 and 2011. The changing status of gender is analyzed demographically, socially
and economically by sex. In 2011, female population exceeds male population, as a result, sex
ratio is low in Nepal. Additionally, in 2011, Nepal has achieved MMR of 281 per 100,000 live births,
and life expectancy for woman has increased to 69.6 years. In terms of education, female literacy
rate is still lower than male’s literacy rate. Higher the level of education, lower the participation
by females. In 2011, only less than 50 percent female graduated than male. Female activity rate is
also low in 2011 than in 2001. Therefore, economic empowerment is still challenging because only
20.5 percent women have assets in 2011 as compared to 17.1 percent in 2001, thereby indicating a
slow improvement. In 2011, there is a rise in female-headed household due to the increasing male
migration. In addition, women’s economic activity is still low in non-agriculture than in agriculture
sector possibly due to lack of education and the tradition of working in agriculture. Similarly, selfemployment
or unpaid family labor is very high for women (64 percent of female in total), which indicates
that women have very less chance to get paid jobs. Thus, it is challenging to gain economic
empowerment for Nepalese women. However, the increasing female international migration (12.4
%) in 2011 may contribute more in terms of remittance in Nepal