Role Of Micro-Finance To The Empowerment of Women: A Case Study Of Karachi

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to analyze the impact of micro financing to induce empowerment to those women who avail the facility of micro-credit in Pakistani society. The study examines the various business activities of women in Karachi who got capital through micro-financing and their socioeconomic status in family as well as society. The women empowerment as dependent variable has been used with three explanatory variables which are amount of micro-finance credit, age of the women and her family support to run her business. Logit Model is applied to assess the level of women empowerment because of binary dependent variable. Primary data has been collected through a questionnaire and in this way this is the first study in this research area using this methodology. Findings of the study indicates a positive correlation of all the variables to cause empowerment of women while family support to a woman has statistically significant impact to a woman. The study indicates the possibility of an improvement of society wellbeing and women empowerment if the direction of micro finance is focused towards women while the study is limited to Karachi region.