| By: |
Bali Swain, Ranjula (Department of Economics);
Wallentin, Fan Yang (Department of Information Science, Statistics) |
| Abstract: |
Microfinance programs like the Self Help Bank Linkage Program in India have
been increasingly promoted for their positive economic impact and the belief
that they empower women. However, only a few studies rigorously examine the
link between microfinance and women’s empowerment. This paper contributes by
arguing that women empowerment takes place when women challenge the existing
social norms and culture, to effectively improve their well being. It
empirically validates this hypothesis by using quasi-experimental household
sample data collected for five states in India for 2000 and 2003. A general
structural model is estimated by employing appropriate techniques to treat the
ordinal variables in order to estimate the impact of the Self Help Group (SHG)
on women empowerment for 2000 and 2003. The results strongly demonstrate that
on average, there is a significant increase in the women empowerment of the
SHG members group. No such significant change is observed however, for the
members of the control group. The elegance of the result lies in the fact that
the group of SHG participants show clear evidence of a significant and higher
empowerment, while allowing for the possibility that some members might have
been more empowered than others. |
| Keywords: |
Microfinance; Women empowerment; Ordinal variables; General structural model and Robust maximum likelihood estimation. |
| JEL: |
C33 G21 J16 |
| Date: |
2007–08–24 |
| URL: |
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2007_024&r=mfd |