Impact of Micro-Credit on Empowerment of Rural Women in Bangladesh

The main focus of the study was to assess the impacts of microcredit on rural women' empowerment in terms of increased income, ownership of assets, gender awareness and improvement of livelihood of the women. The study was conducted in Gazipur Sadar Upazila under Gazipur District of Bangladesh. A total of 90 respondents, 45 from BRAC and 45 from non-BRAC women were randomly selected for the study. It was revealed that the majority of BRAC women and non- BRAC women had no income from agricultural sources. It was also found that in case of agricultural sources, 20% of BRAC women belong to the high to very high -income category while not a single non- BRAC women had high to very high income. Personal income of BRAC women's was more than non-BRAC women and their involvement agricultural and non- agricultural were high. About half of the non- BRAC women had no increased productive assets in the last one year. In case of BRAC women the value of increasing assets were small to medium. It was found that most of the BRAC women's decision making power have been changed and it was higher than non- BRAC women in the study area.