Women Empowerment through Participation in Micro-Credit Programme: A Case Study from Bangladesh

Abstract

Problem statement: Numerous micro-credit organizations have been emerged as the form of mushroom in Bangladesh in the recent times. All of them are providing micro-credit to the poor women with the view of poverty reduction and empowering the rural women. Thus, the researchers take an attempt to check that to what extent these micro-credit programmes are effective in empowering rural women. Approach: The study was attempted to assess the impact of micro-credit programmes in empowering rural women in Bangladesh. All women of Rampur village were the population of the study. Empirical data for the study were collected from 180 women of Rampur village under Palashbari sub-district of Gaibandha district by using structured questionnaire. Among these 180 women 50% were active members of MF NGOs and rest were individual housewives. Lists of micro-credit NGO women were collect from concerned MF NGOs and from these lists, respondent women were selected as random basis. Similarly, lists of the individual housewives were collected from union council office and from that lists respondent women were selected randomly. Results: The result of the study revealed that only 21% of the respondent women are empowered and rest of them is not yet empowered. However, among the empowered respondent women 69% of them are the active members of micro-credit programmes. The result of the study also explored that among the socio-economic factors of the women institutional participation, media exposure and family land holdings are very important for women empowerment. While, micro-credit use by own self, duration of micro-credit use and monitoring by the concerned MF NGO are found as significant factors for women empowerment who are associated with micro-credit programmes. Conclusion: It was therefore, recommended that if it was possible to provide micro-credit to rural women and monitor them regularly, that women by themselves use this money in productive sector then they must be attained empowerment either today or tomorrow.