Impact of Micro Credit on Social Empowerment of Women in Madurai District - Tamil Nadu, A Study

Abstract

Micro-credit is a critical antipoverty tool, a wise investment in human capital. When the poorest especially women receive credit, they become economic actors with power to improve not only their own lives, but in a widening circle of impact, the lives of their families, their communities and their relations. Social Empowerment to create an enabling environment through various affirmative developments polices and programmes for development of women besides providing them easy and equal access to all the basic minimum services so as to enable them to realize their full potentials. The social empowerment of the respondents of sample beneficiaries was measured by using the changes in a set of parameters such as improvement in social recognition, participation, self – sufficiency, social communication, social independence, social interaction and social responsibility between pre – credit and post – credit situation. The relationship between social variables namely social recognition, participation, self – sufficiency, social communication, social independence, social interaction and social responsibility is calculated with the help of karl pearson correlation co-efficient at pre and post-credit situations. Combined group activism with social participation may be encouraged through imparting training and motivation to animators on the concepts like group cohesiveness, basic maintenance of records and success stories of other groups.

Keywords: Empowerment, Micro-credit, Parameters and Indices.