Impact of Self-Help Credit Programme on Livelihood Diversification and Women Empowerment:Evidence from Jammu and Kashmir

The study reveals that that economic activities supported by self-help credit programme have induced improvement in level of empowerment of women. Women's role in enterprise and household decision making, their access to assets and their control over self earnings have improved significantly among the client than non-client group. Self-help credit-based economic activities have facilitated them to take decision for their personal needs, availing treatment and recreational facilities independently as well as to participate in other aspects of household decision making. However, there is need to critically examine certain issues and self-help credit programme should incorporate necessary steps to further enhance empowerment of the women irrespective of their duration in the programme, types of economic activities, and marital status. In order to transform self-help credit programme into a genuine livelihood diversification and gender strategy, women's empowerment needs to be understood as more than a marginal increase in access to income and/or consultation in limited areas of enterprise and household decision-making and/or occasional meetings with a small group of other women. While such advances may be useful first steps in a process, changes at both the micro and macro-levels are required.