Is Vulnerability Factors Discourages Women-Empowerment? The moderating role of Environmental, Health, Economic and Political Vulnerability between Microfinance Institutions and Women-Empowerment
Abstract Background Women-empowerment is still a problematic area in most of the developing countries including Pakistan. The women contribution is limited and not well acknowledged in various developing countries. As the women contribution in Pakistani economy is only 25-30% which is quite low as compared to most of the developing as well as developed countries. Various studies addressed the women-empowerment; however, literature is missing to consider the role of various vulnerability factors such as health, environment, economic/social and political. Microfinance institutes are working; however, the result is limited. It is due to the various vulnerability factors which effect negatively on women empowerment and decreases the positive role of microfinance institutes. Therefore, the prime objective of this study is to examine the role of vulnerability factors and microfinance institutes in women-empowerment.Methods Cross-sectional research design was selected, and survey was carried out to collect the data from female clients of microfinance institutes. Primary data were analyzed by using Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM).Results Findings of the study revealed that vulnerability factors such as women health, environment, economic/social conditions and political conditions decrease women-empowerment. However, microfinance institutes are most significant to enhance women-empowerment. Services of microfinance institutes such as micro-credit, micro-saving and micro-insurance has significant positive relationship with women-empowerment.Conclusion Various vulnerability factors such as women health vulnerability, environment vulnerability, economic/social vulnerability and political vulnerability should be managed to increase women-empowerment. Microfinance institutes is one of the solutions to handle these vulnerabilities through various services. Therefore, the current study is significant for microfinance institutes, state bank of Pakistan and government of Pakistan while making the strategies to enhance women-empowerment.