IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aii/ijcmss/v2y2011i4p77-95.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Role of Microfinance in Women Empowerment: A Study on the SHG Bank Linkage Program in Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh)

Author

Listed:
  • M.Aruna

    (Faculty Member in Economics, Icfai Business School IFHE deemed University, Hyderabad, India)

  • Rema Jyothirmayi

    (Lecturer In Economics, S.P Jain Degree College Banglore, India)

Abstract

Micro finance programs are treated as a key strategy in addressing development issues across nations since the last three decades. This study attempts to explore on the much debated question of the role of microfinance as a financial intermediary for enhancing women empowerment A primary survey has been carried out to capture the realistic experiences and observation from the beneficiaries of Micro sate branch of Hyderabad, a unique initiative of Indian Bank for microfinance operations intended to improve the status of women. The empirical findings of the study suggests that microfinance has a profound influence on the economic status, decision making power, knowledge and self worthiness of women participants of self help group linkage program in Hyderabad. The microfinance related loan availement and its productive utilization found to be causing significant differences in women empowerment levels, measured through women empowerment index (WEI), of the loan availed participants as compared to the non- loan availed. The study confirms that as an anti poverty tool, microfinance has its own limitations to reach the bottom of the poor. However, it is found effective in graduating the poor, not the poorest, and lower middle class to a higher standard of living. Though different studies at various places and points of time differ in their conclusion, the present study acknowledge that despite of bottlenecks, microfinance is capable of graduating struggling poor from their shackles and helps to upscale them to a better living and playing significantly positive role in upgrading women empowerment.

Suggested Citation

  • M.Aruna & Rema Jyothirmayi, 2011. "The Role of Microfinance in Women Empowerment: A Study on the SHG Bank Linkage Program in Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh)," Indian Journal of Commerce and Management Studies, Educational Research Multimedia & Publications,India, vol. 2(4), pages 77-95, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:aii:ijcmss:v:2:y:2011:i:4:p:77-95
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://scholarshub.net/index.php/ijcms/article/view/447/436
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: http://scholarshub.net/index.php/ijcms/article/view/447
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pitt, Mark M & Khandker, Shahidur R & Cartwright, Jennifer, 2006. "Empowering Women with Micro Finance: Evidence from Bangladesh," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(4), pages 791-831, July.
    2. Susan Johnson, 2004. "The impact of microfinance institutions in local financial markets: a case study from Kenya," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(3), pages 501-517.
    3. Shahidur R. Khandker, 2005. "Microfinance and Poverty: Evidence Using Panel Data from Bangladesh," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 19(2), pages 263-286.
    4. Katsushi Imai & Thankom Arun, 2008. "Does Microfinance Reduce Poverty in India?," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0814, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    5. Goetz, Anne Marie & Gupta, Rina Sen, 1996. "Who takes the credit? Gender, power, and control over loan use in rural credit programs in Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 45-63, January.
    6. Peter Crabb, 2008. "Economic Freedom And The Success Of Microfinance Institutions," Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship (JDE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 13(02), pages 205-219.
    7. repec:pri:rpdevs:morduch_microfinance_poor is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Jonathan Morduch, 1998. "Does Microfinance Really Help the Poor? New Evidence from Flagship Programs in Bangladesh," Working Papers 198, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Research Program in Development Studies..
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Atul Mehta & Joysankar Bhattacharya, 2017. "What Works Best for the Poor in Rural India," South Asia Economic Journal, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, vol. 18(2), pages 230-245, September.
    2. Davide Viviano, 2019. "Policy Targeting under Network Interference," Papers 1906.10258, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2024.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Duvendack, Maren & Palmer-Jones, Richard, 2011. "The microfinance of reproduction and the reproduction of microfinance: understanding the connections between microfinance, empowerment, contraception and fertility in Bangladesh in the 1990s," MPRA Paper 32384, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Maren Duvendack & Richard Palmer-Jones, 2012. "High Noon for Microfinance Impact Evaluations: Re-investigating the Evidence from Bangladesh," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(12), pages 1864-1880, December.
    3. Islam, Asadul & Nguyen, Chau & Smyth, Russell, 2015. "Does microfinance change informal lending in village economies? Evidence from Bangladesh," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 141-156.
    4. van den Bold, Mara & Quisumbing, Agnes R. & Gillespie, Stuart, 2013. "Women’s empowerment and nutrition: An evidence review:," IFPRI discussion papers 1294, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    5. Simon Zaby, 2019. "Science Mapping of the Global Knowledge Base on Microfinance: Influential Authors and Documents, 1989–2019," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(14), pages 1-21, July.
    6. Gutiérrez-Nieto, Begoña & Serrano-Cinca, Carlos, 2019. "20 years of research in microfinance: An information management approach," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 183-197.
    7. Chin, Yoo-Mi, 2012. "Credit Program Participation and Decline in Violence: Does Self-Selection Matter?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(8), pages 1690-1699.
    8. Ngo, Thi Minh-Phuong & Wahhaj, Zaki, 2012. "Microfinance and gender empowerment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 1-12.
    9. Ashish Bajracharya & Sajeda Amin, 2013. "Microcredit and Domestic Violence in Bangladesh: An Exploration of Selection Bias Influences," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(5), pages 1819-1843, October.
    10. Dalia Debnath & Md. Sadique Rahman & Debasish Chandra Acharjee & Waqas Umar Latif & Linping Wang, 2019. "Empowering Women through Microcredit in Bangladesh: An Empirical Study," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-11, July.
    11. Kadyrbek Sultakeev & Kamalbek Karymshakov & Burulcha Sulaimanova, 2018. "The Impact Of Microfinance On Entrepreneurship In Kyrgyzstan," Acta Oeconomica Pragensia, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2018(2), pages 24-40.
    12. Waqas Umar Latif & Sana Ullah & Wasim Ahmed & Muhammad Umar Sultan & Rana Muhammad Sohail Jafar & Muhammad Tariq & Wang Linping, 2020. "Microcredit and Economic Welfare: Experience of Poor Rural Households from Pakistan," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(6), pages 976-997, August.
    13. Maria Porter, 2016. "Effects of microcredit and other loans on female empowerment in Bangladesh: the borrower's gender influences intra-household resource allocation," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 47(2), pages 235-245, March.
    14. M. G. Quibria, 2012. "Microcredit and Poverty Alleviation: Can Microcredit Close the Deal?," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2012-078, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    15. Akotey, Joseph Oscar & Adjasi, Charles K.D., 2016. "Does Microcredit Increase Household Welfare in the Absence of Microinsurance?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 380-394.
    16. Quibria, M. G., 2012. "Microcredit and Poverty Alleviation: Can Microcredit Close the Deal?," WIDER Working Paper Series 078, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    17. Khatun, M.A. & Islam, M.A. & Majumder, S., 2013. "Why some poor women in Bangladesh do not opt for micro-credit?," Journal of the Bangladesh Agricultural University, Bangladesh Agricultural University Research System (BAURES), vol. 11.
    18. Khandker, Shahidur R. & Samad, Hussain A., 2014. "Microfinance Growth and Poverty Reduction in Bangladesh: What Does the Longitudinal Data Say?," Bangladesh Development Studies, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), vol. 37(1-2), pages 127-157, March-Jun.
    19. Akpalu, Wisdom & Alnaa, Samuel Erasmus & Aglobitse, Peter B., 2012. "Access to microfinance and intra household business decision making: Implication for efficiency of female owned enterprises in Ghana," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(5), pages 513-518.
    20. Abu S. Shonchoy, 2015. "Seasonal Migration and Microcredit During Agricultural Lean Seasons: Evidence from Northwest Bangladesh," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 53(1), pages 1-26, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aii:ijcmss:v:2:y:2011:i:4:p:77-95. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Mr. Asif Anjum (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.