Women's Empowerment or Disempowerment through Microfinance: Evidence from Bangladesh

Women's empowerment has been one of the declared goals of Bangladesh's national development program, and microfinance is playing a leading role in bringing about the realization of this program. Since one of the intended goals of microfinance is to empower women, this concept paper attempts to investigate the success rate — does microfinance truly empower or is it a case of disempowering through “empowerment”? The effectiveness of microfinance today has been a debatable subject in the economic and social work realms, in which it is considered a viable tool for women's empowerment. Although there are scores of studies that demonstrate that microfinance has a significant impact on livelihood and improves the living standards of women by reducing poverty, this paper contests those claims.