THE IMPACT OF MICROCREDIT ON WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT- A CASE STUDY

The empowerment of women is a vital issue in developing countries. Women’s empowerment has become a global phenomenon in the contemporary discourse of development. This paper evaluated the impact of microcredit on women’s empowerment in Dinajpur during the period of January to December 2016. The data were collected from 158 women by one to one communication through structured questionnaire for collection the information of non-borrowers women to compare the impact between borrowers and control group from four villages namely; Biral, Birampur, Bochaganj and Parbatipur. A significant outcome of this study showed that microcredit has a positive impact on women empowerment and promotes microcredit borrowers especially women to participate in the household decision-making process through acquiring the self esteem, business skills, confidence level, etc. The results confirmed that microcredit has both significant and positive impact on women’s empowerment.