Microfinance and women's empowerment: A lesson from India

By F. Leach, Shashikala Sitaram. 2002

238 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This article describes an NGO project intended to empower scheduled caste women working in the silk-reeling industry in India through the provision of microfinance. It documents the impact that the project had on their economic and social status over a period of time and highlights the negative consequences of excluding male relatives from playing any meaningful role. It suggests ways in which the project might have been made more male inclusive while still empowering women. At the same time, it acknowledges that even if the men's hostility to the project had been overcome, the women's micro enterprises were unlikely to have been viable commercially. This is because the project insisted that the women operate as a group in what was a high-risk area of economic activity, with no clear strategy as to how their work could be sustained.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Sociology and Political Science, Visual Arts and Performing Arts

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7a92d8e176fce217a07542886ca0d9ce56531363

How researchers see this paper

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In Economics and Econometrics

1. S. Digan
2. A. Talwar
3. Stanzin Mantok
4. H. Haugh
5. Gurjeet Kaur Sahi
6. Jan Kratzer
7. M. Kato
8. Pankaj C. Patel

In Sociology and Political Science

1. A. Talwar
2. H. Haugh
3. Jan Kratzer
4. M. Kato
5. Pankaj C. Patel
6. O. Weber
7. B. Addai
8. A. Ahmad

In Visual Arts and Performing Arts

1. Jan Kratzer
2. M. Kato
3. B. Addai

Citations in the corpus

• Women's Perceived Empowerment in Entrepreneurial Efforts: The Role of Bricolage and Psychological Capital (2019, background): “Research has emphasized resource-oriented interventions such as microfinance or the creation of micro-enterprises in rural populations within developing nations (Hunt and Kasynathan 2001; Leach and Sitaram 2002).”
• The Impact of Lending to Women on Household Vulnerability and Women's Empowerment: Evidence from India (2008, unknown): “Others find that loans made to women are usually controlled by their husbands, leading to women’s dependence on them for loan installments and at times in domestic dissension and violence (see, for instance, Goetz & Gupta, 1996; Leach & Sitaram, 2002; Rahman, 1999).”
• Empowering Women through Microfinance: Evidence from Tanzania (2013, background): “It has been considered an effective vehicle for women’s empowerment (Leach & Sitaram, 2002).”
• Women Empowerment Through Microfinance: Empirical Evidence from Ghana (2017, background): “(2002) who also found that microfinance services have succeeded in socially empowering women where economic empowerment could not be possible due to lack of knowledge and understanding about business among women [49].”
• Empowerment Through Microfinance: The Relation Between Loan Cycle and Level of Empowerment (2014, background): “With Leach and Sitaram (2002) it should be emphasized that women empowerment does not mean the exclusion of men.”
• Linking Social Entrepreneurship and Social Change: The Mediating Role of Empowerment (2016, background): “Increasing women’s income does not automatically lead to their empowerment (Leach and Sitaram 2002; Mansuri and Rao 2004; Murthy et al. 2008; Narayan 2002) and may even decrease empowerment (Kantor 2005).”