Nurturing Women Empowerment? A Phenomenological Study of the Linkages between Women, Micro Entrepreneurship and Access to Microcredit

Abstract

This is a phenomenological study which has explored the structural meaning of empowerment from the women perspective, and secondly it would discuss the tie between women, access to microcredit, and micro entrepreneurship. The main objective of this study to extract the women lived experiences that how they feel empowered when the financial inclusion is entered into their lives. There is a strong need of women empowerment because of cultural influences, social taboos, and religious misleading interpretations which lead women towards the journey of disempowerment. This study is based on the abductive research strategy being qualitative in nature; hermeneutics phenomenological philosophy is applied for interpreting the women in-depth interviews. The participants are selected through non-probability purposive maximum variation sampling, 46 women were interviewed from 17 districts of Sindh till the saturation level. Through interpretative phenomenological analysis, the interviews are analyzed through which empowerment meaning constructed that women who feel and realize financial stability are empowered; also findings show the linkage between the women, micro-entrepreneurship and access to microcredit and these in combination nurture empowerment. This study provides the evidences on the basis of women experiences as empowerment phenomenon can be realized by the women due to its categorical nature and it varies culture to culture. Microfinance practitioners and policy makers can design strategies, products, framework and trainings according to the specific needs noticed in this study.

Understanding the dimensions of women entrepreneurs’ empowerment: a systematic review of the microfinance literature and avenues for research

“…More practically, women feel comfortable to express their opinions and ideas in public affairs as well as to their husbands (Bercaw, 2012; Dutt and Sharma, 2016). Such a voice empowerment enables women to mark their presence in the community and to benefit from a better social dignity or status (Qazi and Rashidi, 2018; Islam, 2020), to experience more social interactions and a better physical mobility (Islam, 2020; Agarwala et al ., 2022), to access a large supportive network (Daher et al ., 2022), but also to show a higher ability to resist social norms (Amankwa et al ., 2021; Adhariani, 2022). Financial dimension…”