EFFECT OF INDEPENDENCE VARIABLES ON EMPOWERMENT OF SHG MEMBERS THROUGH ENTREPRENEURIAL ACTIVITIES AND LOAN PRACTICES ADOPTED

Empowerment is a process, which generates changes in ideas and perceptions and creates awareness about one’s rights and opportunities for self-development in all important spheres of life. It enables individuals and groups to change the balance of power by way of knowledge, know-how and experience to strengthen one’s capacity and self-reliance. Many factors affect empowerment level of women such as caste, family’s socio-economic status, custom, culture, age and education of family members as well as women’s herself etc. Thus the study was conducted to know the role of SHGs participation in women empowerment. Random Sampling techniques were used and total 240 women respondents were selected to three blocks of Kanpur District. The study revealed that as age increases with co relation coefficient of 0.2436, 0.2447, 0.2478 and 0.3280. Occupation was observed significantly positively correlated with economic, socio-cultural and politico-legal empowerment. Sharma and Sharma (2010) stated that for Indian rural womenfolk, micro-finance is all about self-sufficiency, employment creation, income generation, social safety as well as sustainable livelihood of the of the poor women’s group. Micro-finance intertwines two major pillars of India viz., democracy and micro-entrepreneurship at the grass root level.