South Asian Studies

A Research Journal of South Asian Studies

Vol. 30, No.1, January – June 2015, pp. 107 – 125.

Role of Microfinance Institutions in Women

Empowerment: A Case Study of Akhuwat, Pakistan

Huma Rehman
University of the Punjab, Lahore.
Amani Moazzam
University of the Punjab, Lahore.
Nighat Ansari
University of the Punjab, Lahore.

Abstract

Gender discrimination is a persistent problem faced by women all over the world,
which has led to the need to empower women for uplifting their status as
recognized by Millennium Development Goals (2010). The present study focuses
on the role of microfinance in empowering women and also acknowledges its’
significance in alleviating poverty. The researcher used qualitative approach and
case study method for in depth analysis of the phenomenon in context of Akhuwat,
an interest free microfinance organization. It was recognized that microfinance
brings about changes in women’s lives: household condition, family wellbeing and
social status. It is improved by availing the services of microfinance institution and
interest free loans further add to their well-being. Present study focused on four
background variables to examine their influence on decision making ability of
women in aspects of their domestic and social life. Age, education, marital status
and family type are important contributing factors that influence women’s
empowerment. It was also observed that women are more inclined to be altruistic
and spend most of their income on their families. The present study can be further
extended by incorporating more factors and increasing sample size in order to get
more significant results.
Key words: Microfinance, Women Empowerment, Poverty, Interest Free
Loan

Introduction

“We recognize that gender equality, the empowerment of women, women’s full
enjoyment of all human rights and the eradication of poverty are essential to
economic and social development, including the achievement of all the

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Millennium Development Goals” (Draft resolution of General Assembly

Millennium Summit, 2010, p. 3).
Keeping in view the status of women in developing countries like Pakistan,
the present study has been conducted to examine the influence of microfinance on
empowering women in context of an interest free MFP, i.e. Akhuwat. An
important milestone for alleviating poverty is through Millennium Development
Goals as the first goal attempts to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger which is
linked with third goal of gender equality and women empowerment. In male
dominated society, women face discrimination in their family, social, economic
and political life and in addition to it the traditional duties of managing households
create hindrances in their social and economic empowerment. Hence various
efforts have been made by many Government and Non-Government organizations
to promote women empowerment especially in rural areas and one such effort is
the microfinance intervention (Meenu et al., 2011).The studies conducted by
various researchers in this field have confirm that targeting women is an effective
way to combat poverty because women are likely to spend their incomes in food,
health care and education of their children. All of these are investments in future
and contribute towards long term economic advancements for families,
communities and ultimately for countries (Women’s Empowerment: Global
Perspectives AJWS, 2006).
In developing countries like Pakistan, women’s empowerment is of great
importance where 22.3% of the people are living under poverty line and nearly 40
per cent of women are poor and of whom almost 30 per cent can be considered
both economically and socially poor. According to the United Nations Human
Development Report 2011, Pakistan ranked 115th among 187 countries on the
HDI in gender equality (National Report - June 2012, Pakistan). So these stats
provide basis for promoting greater emphasis on gender equality.
The study aims at first, confirming a positive link between microfinance and
the socio-economic wellbeing of women in context of a microfinance provider i.e.
Akhuwat and second, to examine the demographic variables that influence women
decision making ability. A qualitative software Nvivo is used for the analysis
purpose to show the impact of MF on the life of its beneficiaries.
The current study tends to answer following research question;

Research Question
How do microfinance institutes empower women?

Sub Questions

i. How microloans empower women socially and economically?

ii. How empowered women contribute to household wellbeing?
iii. How demographic variables contribute to decision making ability of
women?

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Huma Rehman, Amani Moazzam & Nighat Ansari Role of Microfinance

iv. Does access to microfinance raise political awareness of its beneficiaries?

Objectives
 To assess the role of microfinance in empowering women economically,
socially, politically and empowerment related to health and education of
the beneficiaries.
 To examine the demographic variables that influence women decision
making ability.

Literature Review

The present review is an attempt to encircle the socio cultural determinants and
other essential aspects of women’s empowerment indicated in previous studies,
conducted in various parts of the world.

Microfinance

Definition
The term microfinance specifies “the offer of financial services to customers with
low income levels” Nader (2008). According to this simple definition,
microfinance targets low income category people who have no access to the
formal lending system.

Importance of Microfinance

Various researches in MF sector have proved that it’s a very important tool to
boost economic growth, to counteract the effects of economic instability and to
empower women. MF programs target women because of the following reasons;
cost efficiency rationale, it has been confirmed through studies that women’s
repayment rates are much higher than men. Secondly, equity in terms of
employment opportunities among men and women is very important issue
especially in developing countries and thirdly as women are more concerned about
the wellbeing of their family so investing in women creates a “multiplier effect”
that improves the effectiveness of credit funds.

Women Empowerment

Definition of Empowerment
The dictionary meaning of the word empower is “to give somebody the power or
authority to do something or to give somebody more control over their life or the
situation they are in.”

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Kabeer (1999) defined women’s empowerment as “a process by which those

who have been denied the ability to make strategic life choices acquire such
ability” (Swain, 2007).

Why Target Women?

According to World Bank 2011, “Putting resources into poor women’s hands
while promoting gender equality in the household and in society results in large
development payoffs. Expanding women’s opportunities in public works,
agriculture, finance, and other sectors accelerate economic growth, helping to
mitigate the effects of current and future financial crises”.

Dimensions of Women Empowerment

Malhotra et al. (2002) developed a comprehensive list of important dimensions of
empowerment, by using different frameworks developed by various authors.
Economic, socio-cultural, familial/interpersonal, legal, political, and psychological
are significant dimensions that are composed of various factors (sub-domains).

Measuring Empowerment
There is no single standard tool developed by the World Bank or any other
development agency to measure empowerment although it is considered to be a
primary development goal (Malhotra, 2002). Two complementary indices: the
Gender-related Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure
(GEM) were introduced by UNDP’s Human Development Report of 1995. But
these indices have limitations as Bardhan (1999) argued that the presence of large
proportion of elected women members in the national parliament is not a sign of
real power moreover GEM does not consider participation of women in local
political institutions and their visibility in other bodies of civil society i.e. at micro
level (Swain, 2007). Furthermore, Khan and Maan (2008) stated that “there is no
universal yard stick for measuring women empowerment because empowerment is
a context specific construct that may vary from one socio-cultural scenario to
other”. Therefore it is essential to identify the dimensions of empowerment and
measure them. So by keeping in view the significance of targeting women,
different dimensions of women empowerment have been adopted to measure it in
milieu of an interest free MFP i.e. Akhuwat.

Role of Microfinance in Women Empowerment

“Providing access to microfinance for women is considered to be a precondition of

poverty alleviation and women’s empowerment” (Mayoux 1997).
By focusing on women’s empowerment from microfinance perspective, the
policy development circles have started putting more emphasis on gender relations
than ever before and they consider women as a ‘weapon against poverty’ (DFID

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2006, p.1). So it’s very important to empower women by providing them access to
microfinance as gender inequalities hinder economic growth and development
(World Bank, CIDA, UNDP, and UNIFEM).
Three paradigms (feminist empowerment paradigm, poverty alleviation and
financial sustainability paradigm) are very important to understand the concept of
empowerment and its dimensions. By combining and comparing these three
distinct paradigms ‘virtuous spirals’ of economic empowerment, increased well-
being for women and their families and wider social and political empowerment
can be evaluated. These dimensions and paradigms helped in understanding the
interdependence and linkage of three forms of empowerment and helped in
exploring the factors that underlie these dimensions.

Source: Women’s Empowerment through Sustainable Micro-finance: Rethinking ‘Best Practice’

Lindai Mayoux Sept 2005.Page no.5

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A study was conducted by Nader (2008) by testing a hypothesis:

“microcredit is positively linked to women's socio-economic wellbeing in Cairo”.
She argues that microcredit has become imperative to alleviate poverty and to
improve families’ wellbeing and the results also confirms that microcredit is
strongly linked with children's education, income and assets. So it also provides
support to the topic that microfinance plays an important role in women
empowerment, especially their inclination towards family wellbeing and children
education.
According to the Global Gender Gap Report (2012) there is a slow progress
on closing gender gaps although most highly developed countries showed good
advancement in terms of women’s economic empowerment, but not all of them
record progress in terms of women’s political empowerment. Although political
empowerment in this report refers to women’s representation in parliament, in
minister-level positions, in executive office but current study is restricted to power
to vote and choice of candidate as MFIs target people at grass root level.
The above literature supports the general assumption that microfinance has
impact on women socioeconomic wellbeing but there are other factors too that
affect women empowerment and these are discussed with the help of literature as
follows;
A study was conducted in Bangladesh to identify the factors that influence
women's empowerment as a microcredit borrower, as it diverted researchers’
attention and they gave importance to it since its inception in mid-1970s, and
Mohammad Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank was awarded Nobel Peace Prize
in 2006 on the microcredit program of Bangladesh. Rahman, et.al (2009)
identified that “age, education levels of women and levels of income are
significant factors that influence women empowerment”. This study also confirms
that although MF has impact on women’s lives but there are other factors as well
that are associated to women that affect their decision making ability and some of
these will be examined in present study.
The results of another study conducted by Noreen (2011) showed that
“women empowerment is considerably influenced by age, education of husband,
father inherited assets, marital status, number of sons alive and microfinance”.
Moreover it was also found that when loans were used by females, it resulted in
better outcomes as compared to where loans were used by male family members.
It was proposed that education facilities and family protection should be provided
to get better outcomes, so these suggestions can be used for future considerations.
But in contrast to it, the findings of a study conducted by Jayaweera (2010), in
context of education and empowerment in Asia, reveals that because of economic
and social constraints that prevail in society education has not been able to
confront social class differentiation that increases gender inequality in the family,
labor market and society. The relationship between education and empowerment
has nuances that are revealed in the contradictions in macro data and in the more
insightful studies of gender inequality in qualitative studies.

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Akhuwat is a philanthropic organization and until now the only source of

raising funds is through local philanthropy. Beginning with an amount of ten
thousand rupees, Akhuwat has to date given loans more than four hundred and
forty million rupees and is growing further. Akhuwat as the name implies ‘mua-
khaat’ or brotherhood and the idea behind it is that poverty can only be eradicated
if society shares its resources with the poor and needy. There were two main
reasons for establishing it, as Dr. Saqib felt that interest charged by MFIs, is
against Islam and formal banking sector provide loans to affluent individuals at
low rates. This motivated him to start a microfinance program to provide loans in
the form of Qarz-e-Hasna. For Akhuwat, “microcredit is a means to an end and not
an end in itself; the end is a vibrant, economically strong society, based on sharing
resources”. Akhuwat is gender sensitive in terms of employees, donors,
volunteers, and beneficiaries and in their lending program as they have never
refused a loan application on the basis of gender and the first loan was given out to
a woman of Rs. 10,000. The impact assessment study conducted by Khan, Haider
and Asad (2011) shows the role of Akhuwat in changing gender relations, as it has
been recognized that behavior of people towards the involvement of their women
in decision making improved and almost 38 to 58% of people started involving
their women in decision making. Similarly after taking loan from Akhuwat, it was
made possible for 46.1% girls to attend school. Success ratio of Akhuwat can be
gauged by its repayment rate which is 99.83% upto 30 September 2012 and is
being replicated around the world and taught in foreign universities so it would be
worthy to get insight of this MFP.

Theoretical Framework

The current study is based on the model of Islamic microfinance and focuses on
the principle of Qard e Hassan. Interest free microfinance (Islamic Microfinance)
is a new and emerging approach, as interest is illegal in Islam and according to
Islamic teachings; “money is not an asset for earning profit”. The main objective
of this approach is not only repository of wealth but also mutual effort for business
development and sharing profit and loss, and important advantage of this model is
social benefit rather than profit gain and maximization.
Qard-e-Hassan:Akhuwat philosophy is based on Qard e Hassan. According to
teachings of Islam rich people should be motivated to help poor in order to benefit
poor people with social services and raise their standards of life. Qard Hassan is
based on the principle that “lenders give loan to borrowers without any profit or
interest and debtor is supposed to return back as soon or pre decided date but
lender will not press to return back as soon”. Qard Hassan’s works on same
grounds as conventional MFIs but there are some differences like no interest is
charged on loan and there is no strict fine on default or deferment of amount
(Mustafa & Ismailov, 2008).

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Williams’ Theoretical Model of Women’s Empowerment

A theoretical model of women’s empowerment was developed by Williams
(2005) in rural Bangladesh. For this purpose he used the work of Hashemi and
Schuler (1993) and Kabeer (1999), which gave important insights for the
development of model. Kabeer (1999) identified three main elements of
empowerment, which are agency, resources and achievements. The economic,
human and social resources are supposed to be preconditions for empowerment
and “exercise of power, or agency, in the presence of resources is the process of
empowerment”. Ultimately, outcomes are gained in the form of achievements, by
combining resources and agency. The casual sequence of England’s (2000) model
involves economic resources and norms by others and these preconditions
interactively affect the use of power and also directly affect the achievements
(Afzal 2009).

Conceptual Framework

The findings from existing literature and theoretical framework provide the
foundations for the conceptual framework of this study. The conceptual is
supported by models of microfinance i.e. Grameen and Banco sol model in a way
that the Akhuwat foundation also promotes group lending as well as individual
lending and it derives its roots basically from the Islamic model of Qard e Hassan.
The framework depicts the relationship between the background variables (age,
education, marital status and family type), microfinance and women empowerment
as women empowerment is imperative to promote gender equality and alleviate
poverty which is also one of the important Millennium Development Goal.

Figure 2 Conceptual Framework

Adapted from Gender and rural microfinance: Reaching and empowering women IFAD, by Mayoux
and Hartl (2009)

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Methodology

Research Design
This study aims to focus on qualitative research as microfinance and women
empowerment are wide-ranging disciplines with a range of interpretations so a
qualitative analysis would ensure a thorough understanding of the subject matter.
In qualitative research a case study approach is selected because it allows an in-
depth explanation of the social phenomena at hand i.e.; microfinance and women
empowerment in context of Akhuwat. Although there are issues of generalization
in using case study approach but according to Yin (1994) generalization of results
from case studies are based on theory rather than on populations.
In present study the researchers intend to analyze the impact of MF on women
empowerment and other factors that influence their empowerment and Akhuwat
has been taken as a case to validate the findings how much these are truly
implemented there. Even though Akhuwat has been taken as the case the unit of
analysis in the present study is individual.

Data Collection

The study adopts interviews as a measure for collection of information. The

interviews conducted were unstructured comprising of open and close ended
questions. This is the primary source of data collection and besides this in order to
streamline the present study, a number of books; journals; thesis and articles were
reviewed. Relevant secondary data was also collected from published reports;
issued by various local, national and international organizations.
The present study aimed at studying the role of microfinance in uplifting
women socio-economic status in context of Akhuwat. As the unit of analysis is an
individual, the data was collected from the female beneficiaries of Akhuwat.
Akhuwat Foundation has head office located in Town Ship Lahore and several
branches not only in Lahore but also in entire Pakistan. The data was intended to
be collected from the following branches of Lahore:
Town ship Branch
Green Town Branch
Shah Jamal Branch
Mian Meer Branch
In present study convenience sampling technique was used, because it is an
appropriate technique for drawing sample from large population with limited time
and cost. Convenience sampling is a “non-probability sampling technique where
subjects are selected because of their convenient accessibility and proximity to the
researcher”. Akhuwat is expanding its operation in different cities and at the time
of data collection various training sessions and field visits were being given to
people who come from outside the Lahore, this was also a reason to do
convenience sampling as the loan officers were also engaged in that task. The

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entire process of data collection took less than one month as most of the interviews
were been conducted at Green Town Branch and its nearby area, as the other
branches were encumbered and the researchers got less respondents from the rest
of branches. In order to deal with this problem, the researchers made use of the
unfathomable internship experience for covering the broader area and to get
desired output for the study.

Data Analysis

The present study is a single case study and descriptive one. The researcher
intended to study the role of microfinance in empowering women and to examine
the factors other than MF that influence women decision making power. So the
researcher collected information from the female borrowers of Akhuwat through
interviews. Women empowerment is studied with the help of its dimensions as no
standardized tool has been developed so far. The interview schedule was
composed of different sections as per dimensions, the first part was pertaining to
demographic characteristics of the female clients as name, age, education, marital
status, family type, work experience and job status then there were general
questions about need and purpose of MF. The remaining section covered the four
dimensions in detail. Firstly questions related to economic empowerment that is
composed of income, asset related issues and the buying behaviour of females was
gauged. The second part was about health and education concerns of females and
their children. Next social and political aspects were being explored following the
general questions about Akhuwat policies and changes in their life style. Women
opinion of about education, job and life was taken following their awareness about
facilities available in their area.
In present study as the main focus was on exploring the role of MF in
empowering women with special reference to Akhuwat, the researcher also
focused on exploring the influence of other factors on various dimensions of
empowerment. For this purpose the researcher first made node and sub nodes in
Nvivo, of all the important dimensions and aspect pertinent to MF and women
empowerment by keeping in mind important themes and responses of respondents.
Then during the course of data collection it was recognized that four factors are
important to consider for analysing data, are age, education, marital status of
female borrowers and the type of family in which they used to live. So first of all
charts were made by choosing one of these attributes and their likely impact on
one or more dimensions of women empowerment, similarly two attributes were
selected against one or more dimensions of empowerment. Then the researcher
made tree maps that are used to compare nodes by the number of references they
contain and their important feature is the use of colours and size of boxes for
exhibiting the trend of responses of respondents. Queries were run to get the
important pattern in reference to a certain word in the form of text search query
and to visualize words in context by word tree and to compare respondent’s
comments based on demographic attributes, matrix coding query was used.

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Results

The Akhuwat Foundation is interest free microfinance institution having 153

branches throughout Pakistan but the focus of present study encompasses four
branches situated in Lahore, namely Township, Shah Jamal, Mian Meer and Green
Town. The researcher made an effort to conduct interviews from the women near
these branches and most of the interviews were being conducted in Green Town
area.
The following are descriptive results obtained from 13 respondents who were
interviewed. Only female clients of Akhuwat were interviewed because the study
focuses on impact of microfinance on women empowerment. The themes
identified in the study were microfinance, loan drivers, women empowerment,
economic empowerment, social empowerment, political empowerment, health and
education concerns of children and women themselves are being studied in the
context of Akhuwat Foundation. Below more information about the respondents is
given in the form of graphs, tree maps, queries and tables.
The demographic profile of respondents in present sample is such that most
women in sample were married and they used to live in nuclear families. The same
trend can be seen while comparing both variables, as most of the married women
lived in nuclear families as compared to joint family system. Moreover most of the
respondents were under metric and belong to age range of 36-40 and 41-45 and
tendency to get education in nuclear families was more significant than in joint
families. Although there were less respondents living in joint family system but by
comparing both variables it is visible that women living in nuclear families were
fortunate to get education as in joint family system, they seemed to restrict their
education while others got the opportunity to get education upto bachelors level.

Figure 3: Four Dimensions of Women Empowerment according to Family Type

The above figure 3 clearly shows that women who lived in nuclear families
were more authoritative on all dimensions of empowerment, comparing to women
who lived in joint families. Moreover among all dimensions of empowerment,
they were more influential to take decisions about their children health and
education, following by the social empowerment. On the other hand, the women
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living in joint families were less empowered to take decisions about their
children’s health and education as compared to other dimensions.

Figure4: Four Dimensions of Women Empowerment according to Age group

The figure 4 represents women empowerment among all dimensions in

relation to age group. It is visible that the women who belonged to the age bracket
of 41-45 years were more empowered among all four dimensions as compared to
other age ranges.
Table 1 Economic Empowerment compared against level of Education
Income
Home
Economic Asset under Purchase
Maintenance
Empowerment Possession Women Decisions
Decisions
control
Person: Education = 24 6 6 6 6
Under Matric
Person: Education = 4 1 1 1 1
Bachelors
Person: Education = 4 1 1 1 1
Intermediate
Person: Education = 16 4 4 4 4
Un Educated
Person: Education = 4 1 1 1 1
Matric
The Matrix coding query in above table 1 shows trend of responses about
economic empowerment against education level. Overall economic empowerment
seems to be highest in women who were under metric, following by un-educated
women and so on.

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Huma Rehman, Amani Moazzam & Nighat Ansari Role of Microfinance

Figure 5: Text search query: Decisions related to education aspects

In figure 5 an important word education has been displayed with its link to
different terms and how this word has appeared in relation to women authority to
decide on their children’s education. The query shows that those women are
concerned about their children’s education and one woman in sample also takes
loan for her sons’ education. When they are asked that do they have authority to
take decision about education of their children, one of the respondents replied;
“Yes I am very much concerned about my children’s education. To me
education is very important and I intend to educate them maximum, as I couldn’t
get the opportunity to study. So I have admitted them in English medium school to
make them able to get higher education in
future”.

Figure 6: Tree Map: Four dimensions of Women Empowerment

In this Tree Map, the four dimensions of Women Empowerment namely
Economic Empowerment, Social Empowerment, Health and Education
Empowerment, and Political Empowerment, have been demonstrated and the size
of each box representing the trend of responses of respondents, their major areas
of authority and exhibiting their priorities in life.
The separate illustration of each dimension has been given above. Now there
will be discussing the major share of each aspect on which they appear to be more
empowered. As a whole it is evident that women were more empowered in respect
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to their children’s health and education and in social aspects of their lives. While
in economic terms they generally have authority to take decisions on purchasing
different household items and politically they are not much aware of their rights.

Figure 7: Tree Map: Microfinance with its four aspects

The figure 7 demonstrates the four important areas of Microfinance being
explored in this study with reference to Women Empowerment. Starting from the
right side of the diagram, it is visible that the main loan driver for most of the
women was the business activity and some of the women also took loan for other
family members. The major reason for satisfaction with the loan policy and taking
loan from Akhuwat was the interest free loan and some also added that their staff
is very cooperative that boosts their satisfaction level. Most of the women took
loan to improve their household condition as visible from the second box, and
family wellbeing was also a major concern. It is also clear from the above figure,
first box, that impacts of microfinance in their lives were, improved household
condition, children’s better education, better standard of living, savings for the
future and improved social status as well.

Discussion

In order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, various strategies are

placed around the world and microfinance is one such intervention. Microfinance
important contribution towards MDGs is that helps to combat poverty and reduce
gender differences. As this chapter is intended to provide an in depth explanation
of the study objectives that how MF impacts the socio-economic lives of women
and importance of demographic characteristics of women on their decision making
power in the light of above stated results and literature.
Family type: People living in nuclear families are assumed to be more
authoritative to take decisions in all spheres of life as compared to those living in
joint families. As in figure 3 it is visible that women who lived in nuclear families
were more authoritative on all dimensions of empowerment compared to women
who lived in joint families. Moreover, among all dimensions of empowerment,
they were most influential to take decisions about their children’s health and
education, following by the social empowerment. On the other hand, the women
who lived in joint families were least empowered to take decisions about their

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children’s health and education as compared to other dimensions. So the current

study proves that family type is a very important factor to consider in women
empowerment. The study conducted by Khan and Maan (2008) confirmed that
type of family and family head greatly influence women empowerment. They
observed that in Pakistani socio cultural context, it is difficult for women live in
joint family system and to spend life according to their will and authority women.
It also depends on family head if a family head is husband, then women can be in
better position to take part in household decisions but when family head is father
in-law or others then her position is more submissive and incapable (Roy and
Niranjan, 2004).
Age group: studies conducted by Ahmad and Sultan (2004); Elizabeth and
Thomas (2001) and Jejeebhoy (2000) also proved that age has profound impact on
women’s empowerment. In present study, figure 4, shows that women who
belonged to the age bracket of 41-45 years were more empowered among all four
dimensions as compared to other age ranges.
Education level of respondents: As education is a very important determinant
of socioeconomic development of a country but it is also a fact that in context of
Asia, education has not been able to confront social class differentiation because
economic and social constraints that prevail in society reinforce gender inequality
in the family, labor market and society (Jayaweera, 2010). The table 1 of matrix
coding query shows the trend of responses of respondents’ economic
empowerment against education level. Overall economic empowerment seems to
be highest in women who were under metric, following by un-educated women
and so on. Besides age group, sample characteristics were also a reason for this
trend as most of the women being interviewed were un-educated so naturally this
feature dominated in results. But most of the women were passionate to continue
their education if they were given opportunity and they were very much
enthusiastic about their children’s education, so education factor can be carefully
examined in future research while selecting the sample. In reviewed literature
Rahman, et al. (2009) identified that age, education levels of women and levels of
income are major factors that affect women empowerment. Similarly Noreen
(2011) explored that “age, education of husband, father inherited assets, marital
status, number of sons alive and microfinance” considerably influence women
empowerment. But in present study age and marital status have shown to be more
influential characteristics than education and other factors.
Four dimensions of women empowerment: It is important to note that in
which dimensions women have more authority and which areas of their life need
more attention and improvement. In figure 6 of results section, the four
dimensions of women empowerment; economic, social, health and education
empowerment and political empowerment, have been demonstrated that shows
their major areas of authority and exhibiting their priorities in life. As a whole it is
evident that women were more empowered with respect to their children’s
education and in social aspects of their lives. While in economic terms they
generally had authority to take decisions on purchasing different household items
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and politically they were not much aware of their rights. They usually vote to the
people (nazim of their area) who come to them for taking vote, or they had no
opinion in this respect and they vote for people of their family choice. It shows
that women lack political awareness and according to the Global Gender Gap
Report (2012) there is a slow progress on closing gender gaps although most
highly developed countries showed good advancement in terms of women’s
economic empowerment, but not all of them record progress in terms of women’s
political empowerment. A related study conducted by Nader (2008) shows that
microcredit has become imperative to combat poverty and to improve families
wellbeing and the results also confirmed that microcredit is strongly linked with
children's education, income and assets. So it also provides support to the topic
that microfinance plays an important role in women empowerment, especially
their inclination towards family wellbeing and children education.
Microfinance: The figure 7 demonstrates the four important areas of
Microfinance being explored in the study with reference to Women
Empowerment. Empowerment related to education of children’s shows that
women mostly use the money earned from business to spend on their children
education even some women took loan for the education of their children. The
satisfaction with the loan policy and major reasons of taking loan from Akhuwat
was the interest free loans and some of them also added that cooperativeness of
Akhuwat staff boosted their satisfaction level. The tree map also shows that there
is a visible change in life of beneficiaries as evident through a strong connection,
before and after taking loan, as for most of the respondents the utmost need to take
loan from Akhuwat was to “improve household condition” and in the end when
they were being asked about the changes in their life after taking loan, most of the
respondents responded that after starting business their household condition has
improved. Moreover their concern about family well-being resulted in children’s
better education and better standard of living as the desired outcomes. This shows
that how microfinance serves the purpose of meeting the needs of people and
contributes to uplift the standard of living.

Conclusion

The study draws attention towards increasing importance of gender equality as

central to family wellbeing and socioeconomic development of a country and
microfinance initiatives have proved to be an important tool in such developments.
Analysis of qualitative information led to important conclusions to comprehend
the phenomenon of women empowerment in greater detail. In economic terms,
women were more authoritative to take purchase decisions related to household
items as compared to home maintenance decisions and asset possession where the
authority generally rests with men. Furthermore, it was also revealed that their
status was quiet better in terms of taking decisions and visiting Akhuwat meetings
and social gatherings independently. Similarly majority of women had the
authority to decide about their children’s education but contrary to it results

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revealed that women were not empowered in political terms. On the basis of above
mentioned findings it can be concluded that although increase in women’s income
played a very important role in enhancing women’s economic independence but
the societal discrimination still prevails that limit the ability of women to fully
exercise their potential for betterment of their family.
The study also highlights that age, education; marital status and family type
are influential factors that were analyzed in relation to their impact on economic,
social and political and health and education empowerment of women. In present
study it was found that age factor effects positively and more significantly among
the beneficiaries of Akhuwat.
The reviewed literature suggests that it is very important to take into account
the context in which the microfinance initiatives and women empowerment are to
be examined. The study provides the rationale for targeting women by as
microfinance has proved to be an effective means for empowering women and in
order to achieve the third MDG i.e. to promote gender equality and to empower
women, it’s imperative to provide financial resources in the hands of women, to
level the playing field and promote gender equality.

Recommendations

The present study is not an end in itself rather it highlights some aspects of
women’s empowerment that needs further studies in this area.
 The present study included/involved Lahore region only, so it can be further
extended to other cities of Pakistan to examine the variations in pattern of
empowerment due to different socio cultural trends in different regions.
 Present study focused on four demographic variables due to time constraint, it
can be further extended by incorporating more factors that influence women’s
empowerment.
 In Pakistan, due to cultural problems, traditions, small number of business
opportunities and barriers to access to finance, more than 15% of women
living in urban areas are unemployed so there is great potential for
microfinance business both in rural and urban areas (Mustafa & Ismailov
2008).
 A comparative study can also be done by taking into account the role of other
microfinance providers in empowering women to highlight the significance of
Akhuwat being the only interests free MFP.

Limitations
It is important while conducting research that the researcher is aware of all
possible limitations of the study.
 A small sample size is one of the limitations in present study. In case of
Akhuwat, a large number of female clients are being served but due to time
constraint and requirement of the degree program the sample was confined to
fifteen interviews from which two were excluded as being less informative.
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 Secondly, case studies are assumed to provide less generalized conclusion

because case study is not like a sample taken from a known population
similarly the respondents who are interviewed in qualitative research are not
meant to be representative of a population (Bryman, 2008).
 There is no universal standard for measuring women empowerment especially
at household level and it is difficult to develop consensus among various
authors. Although it has been measured by using various dimensions and
related factors it may have some shortcomings.
 Empowerment is context specific phenomenon so it’s very important to
consider it as if there is any variation in nature and importance of
empowerment across context; it poses serious challenge in terms of
consistency and comparing while measuring it.

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Biographical Note

Huma Rehman has been a MPA (Upgraded) student at the Institute of Administrative
Sciences, University of the Punjab, Lahore.
Dr. Amani Moazzam is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Administrative Sciences,
University of the Punjab, Lahore.
Nighat Ansari is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Administrative Sciences,
University of the Punjab, Lahore.

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