EFFECT OF MICROCREDIT ON LIVELIHOOD IMPROVEMENT OF WOMEN BENEFICIARIES INVOLVED IN ASSOCIATION FOR SOCIAL ADVANCEMENT

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to determine the effect of microcredit programme of Association for Social Advancement (ASA) in livelihood improvement (LI) of women, describe the selected individual characteristics of the women and to explore its relationships and contributions with their individual characteristics. Data were collected by using pre-tested interview schedule from a sample of 290 women selected by multistage random sampling procedure from four branches of ASA in Sadar Upazila of Dinajpur district during August 2010 to January 2011. The livelihood improvement was determined initially on four aspects viz. 1) food security, ii) health and sanitation, iii) family assets and shelter and iv) social empowerment. After that selection, in each of the four aspects twelve specific activities were identified and selected. Finally a Livelihood Improvement Index (LIT) was computed. Among the 48 activities of 4 aspects of livelihood improvement included in the study ‘availability of oral dehydration saline (ORS) (if necessary)’ was the highest and it was followed by ‘having cash money to buy rice or wheat’; however, ‘toilets in open place’ was the lowest. Nearly two-third (65.9 percent) of the respondents had low, 24.8 percent medium and 9.3 percent had high livelihood improvement. Among twelve individual characteristics of the women, education, annual family income, credit received, savings, attitude towards ASA, aspiration, self-confidence and family expenditure had significant positive relationships with their livelihood improvement. However, age and fatalism of the respondents had significant negative relationship with the livelihood improvement of the women. Regression analysis indicated that variations in the livelihood improvement were mainly due to the contributions of five predictors viz. self-confidence, annual family income, fatalism, aspiration and education and these variables contributed more than 37 percent of the total variation on livelihood improvement. Among these five, self-confidence contributed 9.00 percent variation in the livelihood improvement of the women followed by 8.63 percent variation by annual family income, 8.30 percent by fatalism, 7.37 percent by aspiration and 3.90 percent by education. Main problem of the women beneficiaries in utilizing microcredit was the ‘insufficient loan for proper utilization’. In respect of measures to overcome the problems,' distribution of desirable amount of credit by ASA and other organizations ' topped the rank.