SOCIO-ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF MICROFINANCE OF GRAMEEN BANK ON BORROWER HOUSEHOLDS IN BOGRA DISTRICT OF BANGLADESH

The study is to examine the socio-economic effects of microfinance of Grameen Bank (GB) on borrower households in the study area. Microfinance of Grameen Bank has a contribution on change of socio-economic status, reducing poverty and increase income generating activities. It is to investigate the socio-economic change occurred among them in the reference time of period. The collected data were estimated using statistical techniques. Statistical analyses include mean, Chi-square test, analysis of variance (ANOVA) test and four Likert scales (four point-scales) such as Strongly increase (Strongly Agree), Moderate increase (Agree), Unchanged (Disagree) and Decreased (Strongly Disagree). The total sample size was only 168 borrowers of GB through simple random sampling from eight centers under four branches, and where multi-cluster sampling has been used for this study. The ANOVA test is performed to examine the association between microcredit and socio-economic factors such as education, occupation, average monthly income, savings, value of assets and cultivated land, etc. After taken loan from Grameen Bank (GB), change of average monthly income, savings, average monthly expenditure, occupation of borrowers, education expenditure for children of borrowers, asset value of borrower households are being increased. The respondents showed the level of changes in 16 chosen indicators separately. Participation impact score (PIS) of selected change items (16 items) reveal that how much changes to have occurred among the women borrowers after joining GB. The result of Standardized PIS (SPIS) reveals the overall significant, which is above 70 percent. The results of PIS or SPIS indicate that the highest score among selected 16 items is for improved participation in family decision-making and the lowest score among all is for improvement counting ability. Finally, coverage and schemes of microcredit programmes, lowering interest rate, extending the repayment period, delaying the start-up of instalment are among the main suggestions that can be pursued so as to obtain better outcomes of microcredit activities in the study area and in the whole country as well. In spite of some barrier of microfinance institutions, microcredit has a positive contribution on socio-economic of borrower households in the rural area of Bangladesh.