Journal Screenshot

International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

Open Access Journal

ISSN: 2222-6990

Socio-Economic Impact of Entrepreneurship Activities for the Empowerment of Women in Bangladesh

Aysha Akter, Fahmida Husain Choudhury, Thahamina Bagum, Md. Monirul Islam, Rakibul Hasan

http://dx.doi.org/10.6007/IJARBSS/v14-i2/20847

Open access

Women empowerment can have a positive effect on a country’s economic development. Entrepreneurship can be a key factor in contributing to the empowerment of women. However, social and cultural norms impact on the extent that women in developing countries engage with and benefit from entrepreneurial activities. This research explored how entrepreneurship increases women empowerment and to understand the socio-economic impact of women entrepreneurship in Bangladesh. The study was conducted with the women of Sylhet district in Bangladesh. Data was collected from a sample of 100 randomly selected women from a population of 280. Empowerment was assessed based on nine factors by using a 5-point rating scale. The overall empowerment score of women was obtained by summing up the scores of the dependent variable. Pearson’s correlation coefficient (r) was computed to explore the relationship between the extents of empowerment of the respondents with their selected characteristics. The findings revealed that the majority (60%) of the rural women had a medium level of empowerment while 31% had low, 6% had very low, and only 3% had a high level of empowerment. Age, education, occupation, communication exposure, access to credit and training received by the respondents were positively correlated with their empowerment. And there is a significant relationship between participation in entrepreneurial activities and women’s empowerment. Also the findings showed that involving entrepreneurship activities have a positive impact on women empowerment.

Addai, B. (2017). Women empowerment through microfinance: Empirical evidence from Ghana. Journal of Finance and Accounting, 5(1), 1.
Akram, N. (2018). Women’s empowerment in Pakistan: its dimensions and determinants. Social Indicators Research, 140(2), 755-775.
Alexander, A. C., & Jalalzai, F. (2020). Symbolic empowerment and female heads of states and
government: a global, multilevel analysis. Politics, Groups, and Identities, 8(1), 24-43.
Atake, E. H., & Ali, P. G. (2019). Women’s empowerment and fertility preferences in high fertility countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. BMC women's health, 19(1), 54.
Banerjee, S., Alok, S., & George, B. (2020). Determinants of Women Empowerment as Measured by Domestic Decision-Making: Perspective from a Developing Economy. In Advanced Issues in the Economics of Emerging Markets. Emerald Publishing Limited.
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (2019). PDF available on www.bbs.gov.bd.
Choudhry, A. N., Mutalib, R. A., & Ismail, N. S. A. (2019). Socio-cultural factors affecting women economic empowerment in Pakistan: A situation analysis. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 9(5), 90-102.
Cislaghi, B., Denny, E. K., Cissé, M., Gueye, P., Shrestha, B., Shrestha, P. N., & Clark, C. J. (2019).
Changing social norms: The importance of “organized diffusion” for scaling up community health promotion and women empowerment interventions. Prevention Science, 20(6), 936-946.
Crittenden, V. L., Crittenden, W. F., & Ajjan, H. (2019). Empowering women micro-entrepreneurs in emerging economies: The role of information communications technology. Journal of Business Research, 98, 191-203.
Dash, M., Prasad, V. M., & Koshy, C. J. (2016). Women empowerment through microfinance
services. Journal of Applied Management and Investments, 5(1), 20-25.
Galiè, A., Teufel, N., Girard, A. W., Baltenweck, I., Dominguez-Salas, P., Price, M. J.,& Smith, K.
(2019). Women’s empowerment, food security and nutrition of pastoral communities in Tanzania. Global Food Security, 23, 125-134.
Galiè, A., Teufel, N., Korir, L., Baltenweck, I., Girard, A. W., Dominguez-Salas, P., & Yount, K. M. (2019). The women’s empowerment in livestock index. Social Indicators Research, 142(2), 799- 825.
Gibbs, A., Corboz, J., Chirwa, E., Mann, C., Karim, F., Shafiq, M. & Jewkes, R. (2020). The impacts Of combined social and economic empowerment training on intimate partner violence,depression, gender norms and livelihoods among women: an individually randomised controlled trial and qualitative study in Afghanistan. BMJ global health, 5(3), e001946.
Hossain, M., Asadullah, M. N., & Kambhampati, U. (2019). Empowerment and life satisfaction:
Evidence from Bangladesh. World Development, 122, 170-183.
Inagaki, K., & Hara-Fukuyo, J. (2020). Empowerment of Women through Pre-farming Careers in Rural Japan. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 28(1).
Jitu, J. A. (2019). Women Economic Empowerment and SMEs: A Case Study on Bangladesh.
Kapoor, S. (2019). Entrepreneurship for Economic and Social Empowerment of Women: A Case Study of a Self Help Credit Program in Nithari Village, Noida, India. Australasian Accounting, Business and Finance Journal, 13(2), 123-142.
Khan, S., Rajaguru, G., Goldsmith, A., & Khalid, A. (2017). The determinants of women's empowerment in Pakistan: The role of household formation and employment. In The 2017 Asian Meeting of the Econometric Society.
Kumar, K. (2020). Women Empowerment in India: Facts from National Family Health Survey. Journal of Industrial Relationship, Corporate Governance & Management Explorer (e ISSN 2456- 9461), 3(2), 20-28.
Malapit, H., Quisumbing, A., Meinzen-Dick, R., Seymour, G., Martinez, E. M.,Heckert, J., & Team, S. (2019). Development of the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI). World development, 122, 675-692.
Meena, R. S. (2019). Women empowerment in Bangladesh: A political scenario. ACADEMICIA: An International Multidisciplinary Research Journal, 9(8), 80-89.
Nawaz, F. (2019). Microfinance and women’s empowerment in Bangladesh.
Nayak, A. K., & Panigrahi, P. K. (2020). Participation in Self-Help Groups and Empowerment of
Women: A Structural Model Analysis. The Journal of Developing Areas, 54(1).
Panday, P. (2016). Women's Empowerment in South Asia: NGO Interventions and Agency Building in Bangladesh. Routledge.
Phan, L. (2016). Measuring women’s empowerment at household level using DHS data of four
Southeast Asian countries. Social Indicators Research, 126(1), 359-378.
Pradhan, R., Meinzen-Dick, R., & Theis, S. (2019). Property rights, inter sectionality, and women's empowerment in Nepal. Journal of Rural Studies, 70, 26-35.
Prata, N., Fraser, A., Huchko, M. J., Gipson, J. D., Withers, M., Lewis, S.,& Upadhyay,U. D. (2017).
Women’s empowerment and family planning: A review of the literature. Journal of biosocial science, 49(6), 713-743.
Quisumbing, A. R. (2020). Women’s status and the changing nature of rural livelihood in Asia. Reducing poverty and hunger in Asia, ed.
Rafay, B., Habib, B., Tariq, U., & Ali, A. A. (2016). Analysis on the Social Legislation and Women
Empowerment in Pakistan: Comparative study of Democratic governments and Dictatorship
periods (1947-2012). Journal of the Research Society of Pakistan, 53(1).
Rahman, A. (2019). Women and microcredit in rural Bangladesh: An anthropological study of Grameen Bank lending. Routledge.
Rao, N., Gazdar, H., Chanchani, D., & Ibrahim, M. (2019). Women’s agricultural work and nutrition in South Asia: From pathways to a cross-disciplinary, grounded analytical framework. Food Policy, 82, 50-62.
Richardson, R. A., Harper, S., Bates, L. M., & Nandi, A. (2019). The effect of agency on women's
mental distress: A prospective cohort study from rural Rajasthan, India. Social Science &
Medicine, 233, 47-56.
Sanawar, S. B., Islam, M. A., Majumder, S., & Misu, F. (2019). Women’s empowerment and intimate partner violence in Bangladesh: investigating the complex relationship. Journal of biosocial science, 51(2), 188-202.
Santoso, M. V., Kerr, R. B., Hoddinott, J., Garigipati, P., Olmos, S., & Young, S. L. (2019). Role of women's empowerment in child nutrition outcomes: A systematic review. Advances in Nutrition, 10(6), 1138-1151.
Sharaunga, S., Mudhara, M., & Bogale, A. (2016). Effects of ‘women empowerment ‘on household food security in rural KwaZulu?Natal province. Development Policy Review, 34(2), 223-252.
Sharma, P., & Varma, S. K. (2016). Women empowerment through entrepreneurial activities of Self Help Groups. Indian Research Journal of extension education, 8(1), 46-51.
Sinha, M., Mahapatra, S. S., Dutta, A., & Sengupta, P. P. (2019). Microfinance and Women Empowerment: An Empirical Analysis. In Handbook of Research on Microfinancial Impacts on Women Empowerment, Poverty, and Inequality (pp. 52-64). IGI Global.
Sinharoy, S. S., Waid, J. L., Ali, M., Yount, K. M., & Thilsted, S. (2019). Resources for women's agency, household food security, and women's dietary diversity in urban Bangladesh.
Sinharoy, S. S., Waid, J. L., Haardörfer, R., Wendt, A., Gabrysch, S., & Yount, K. M. (2018). Women's dietary diversity in rural Bangladesh: pathways through women' empowerment. Maternal & child nutrition, 14(1), e12489.
Sultana, H. Y., Jamal, M. A., & Najaf, D. E. (2017). Impact of microfinance on women empowerment through poverty alleviation: An assessment of socio-economic conditions in Chennai city of Tamil Nadu. Asian Journal for Poverty Studies (AJPS), 3(2).
Tandon, T. (2016). Women empowerment: perspectives and views. The International Journal of Indian Psychology, 3(8), 6-12.
Wejnert, B. (2019). Effects of Market-Based Development on Women’s Empowerment: Impact on Families. Marriage & Family Review, 1-30.
Whyte, R. O., & Whyte, P. (2020). The women of rural Asia. Routledge.
World Bank. (2018). World development report 2012: Gender equality and development. Washington, DC: World Bank.

(Akter et al., 2024)
Akter, A., Choudhury, F. H., Bagum, T., Islam, M. M., & Hasan, R. (2024). Socio-Economic Impact of Entrepreneurship Activities for the Empowerment of Women in Bangladesh. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 14(2), 935–953.