Role of Microfinance towards Personal Empowerment of Women: An Empirical Study

Woman encompasses a heap of potential which could contribute to the progress of the society. Empowering women is a multidimensional holistic approach. Personal empowerment of women could be considered as one of the essential aspects of the development. It involves an increase in autonomy, a sense of self-worth, satisfaction with life, and the right to control own life. This empirical study was conducted to quantify the level of personal empowerment of women, identify the role of microfinance, and socioeconomic factors essential for sustainable personal empowerment. This study was based on the primary data collected from 414 women residing in nine blocks of South-24 Parganas district of West Bengal. It was found that involvement in microfinance activities had a positive impact on the achievement of the empowerment level and helped those who utilized their borrowed funds for entrepreneurial activities. The study identified the age, education of the respondents' and family members as influencing factors towards the decision of the respondent to use the borrowed money for carrying out entrepreneurial activities. In the target area, there was a lack of skilled entrepreneurial activities as educated women were not interested as demanded as entrepreneurship was taxing. So, to ensure sustainable entrepreneurship in the rural area the government should set up organization exclusively for helping the women to understand the market opportunities of the business, helping them with cost curtailing techniques of production and use of latest technology in their business which could ultimately help these small entrepreneurs to achieve sustainable entrepreneurship.