"IMPACT OF MICROCREDIT OF GRAMEEN BANK ON EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN: A STUDY IN GABTALI UPAZILLA OF BOGRA DISTRICT"

Women empowerment in Bangladesh like others developing countries is one of the most important issues.The purpose of the present study is to examine the impact of Grameen Bank microfinance on women empowerment in Gabtali upazila of Bogra District. The borrowers of Grameen Bank have been selected randomly and women empowerment of borrowers has been compared to before involving with microfinance of GBand at present. Women empowerment of the borrowers before involving with microfinance of Grameen Bank and at present depends mainly economic decision making, household decision making and physical movement in study area. For this study, both primary and secondary data have been used for this study.The primary datahave beenmainly usedfor data analysisin case of econometrics and statistical analysis. In this study, Dimension index, Women Empowerment Index (WEI), Chi-square test, t-test, and Multiple linear regression model have been used to examine the impact of microfinance of GB on women empowerment. Women empowerment index has been constructed following economic decision making, household decision making and physical movement. The mean value of WEIsin the study indicates women borrowers more empoweredare at present compared to before involving of GB. OLS model has been used to find out that the explanatory variables are spending money, purchasing needs daily, using loan, own healthcare and which indicates statistically positive and significant effect on women empowerment but only visiting relative shows negative relationship with women empowerment which is a factor of physical movement.All variables of the regression model which indicate that these variables are statistically significant at 1 percent level of significance with women empowerment.Chi- square test which shows that there exists a significant and positive relationship between borrowers' own income monthly and women empowerment (Prob.> Chi2 = 0.043) at present but before involving with GB, chi-square test which shows that there exists statistically an insignificant relationship between borrowers' own monthly income and women empowerment (Prob.> Chi2 = 0.619). Above all, after analyzing the empirical result, it can be concluded that microfinance of GB has a positive and significant effect on women empowerment in study area but it has not been achieved not as much as it had been expected.