An empirical analysis of the relationship between Grameen Bank participation and women's empowerment

The effectiveness of Grameen Bank (GB) programs in promoting empowerment, as indicated by several variables, among its women participants was studied. The variables included income generation, decision-making concerning the use and distribution of household resources, participation in family planning practices, food consumption indicators, literacy skills, and socio-political awareness. The study included a survey of participants from two branches of the GB located in two Bangladeshi villages. The survey respondents included women who were members of the GB for 5 and 10 years, new GB applicants, and a control group of villagers who were eligible to be members of GB but did not apply. The researcher then analyzed the data by cross-tabulations using the chi-square test. The analyses were done in three sets; cross-tabulations between 5-year, 10-year and non-loanee groups, between the control and new applicant groups, and between the 5-year and 10-year loanee groups.;From these analyses, it can be concluded that while GB participation is associated with higher levels of social and economic empowerment, there is still much improvement that is needed in order to overcome the historic, economic, and cultural forces that have impeded the empowerment of Bangladeshi women. This suggests that empowerment of rural Bangladeshi women may require that participation in programs such as GB continue for two or more generations. Also, the findings indicate that there is still a need for empowerment efforts that are accessible to the poorest of the poor rural Bangladeshi women. Whether targeting these poorest women would be best achieved by expanding access to GB programs, or instead through a different program remains an open question.;For the first set of analyses, the data and analyses show, for the variables tested, that the 5-year loanee and 10-year loanees had higher levels of economic and social empowerment than did non-loanee respondents. In the second set of analyses, the data show that new GB applicants had higher levels of empowerment than women who were potential GB applicants but had not applied for membership. This finding could account, at least partially, for the results obtained in the first set of analyses; namely, that GB loanees had higher levels of empowerment than non-loanees. This second finding also may suggest that GB is not accessible to the poorest of the poor. The third set of analyses revealed that the 10-year loanee group did not have significantly higher levels of empowerment than the 5-year loanee group. Thus the study could not establish the fact that longer participation in GB increased the level of empowerment for the GB loanees.