Impact of Microfinance Services on Rural Women Empowerment: An Empirical Study

This study analyzes the impact of microfinance services in empowering rural women. It aims to obtain insights regarding factors empowering rural women through microfinance services and also assesses which factors influence empowerment the most and to what extent. The study is based on correlation and multiple regression analysis of data collected through questionnaires from 205 respondents in rural areas of North Gujarat, India. It finds that four factors namely socio-economic status upgradation, autonomy for life choices, women position in the family/society, and positive approach towards child development have significant impact. The findings are likely to help MFIs, governments, and NGOs in designing policy to empower rural women socially and economically. The paper covers the following sections in detail:

• Definition of microfinance and empowerment;
• Review of literature relevant to the topic of study;
• Development and discussion of ten hypothesis designed for the study;
• Research methodology including objective, nature of the study, sampling techniques, data collection, and statistical tools used;
• Data analysis and discussion on major findings with a focus on demographic profile of respondents, reliability statistics, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis;
• Managerial implications of the study;
• Limitations of the study and suggestions for future research.