MICROFINANCE AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT: A CASE STUDY OF PAKISTAN’S MICROFINANCE INSTITUTIONS

World Bank (2001) documents that Society, which discriminates, based on gender pay the cost of greater poverty, slower economic growth, weaker governance and lower living standard of its people. Development efforts will only have partial effects if the women are not empowered to participate alongside men in the development process (Oxaal and Baden, 1997). Therefore, development studies put much emphasis on the gender equity as a critical component for successful development strategies. If we look back at the history of microfinance then we would observe that microfinance has been designed for the poor and marginalized societies to get them out of poverty and to empower them. Although there is no general agreement on the definition of women’s empowerment, many studies have been made on the topic based on different definitions of women’s empowerment. The perception of women empowerment varied according to the development paradigm as perceived by the Scholars. The feminist empowerment paradigm focuses on transformation of power relations throughout society. The poverty alleviation paradigm focuses on increased wellbeing, community development and sufficiency, while the financial sustainability approach focuses on economic empowerment, expansion of individual choice and capacity for self-reliance.