MICROFINANCE PRACTICE AND WOMEN EMPOWERMENT IN KATHMANDU

Abstract

The study was conducted to examine the microfinance practice and women empowerment in Kathmandu with the objectives to examine the significant relationship between different microfinance practices with women empowerment and to analyze the microfinance practices that impact the women empowerment. The study was based on descriptive and casual comparative research design. The population of this study was women who are actively engaged or willing to engage in microfinance services. Similarly, 400 women who actively engaged or willing to engage in microfinance was selected as sample for this study. The study was quantitative in nature. The study use primary source of data collection. The data was collected through a structured questionnaire. Convenient sampling technique was utilized to collect data from the respondents who are actively engaged or willing to engage in microfinance. Similarly, the collected data are extracted and subjected to analysis using statistical software like SPSS, enabling the researcher to examine relationships, trends, and patterns relevant to the study's objectives. For analysis, tools like descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and regression analysis was used. The independent variables of the study were financial freedom, changing lifestyle of women entrepreneur, socio-economic activities, effectiveness of microfinance. And dependent variable was women empowerment. The findings of the study showed that there is significant relationship between financial freedom, changing lifestyle of women entrepreneur, socio-economic activities and effectiveness of microfinance and women empowerment. The correlation analysis showed there is significant relationship between financial freedom, changing lifestyle of women entrepreneur, socio-economic activities, effectiveness of microfinance and women empowerment.