Shashi Kanta Varma

Entrepreneurial Activities of Self Help Groups: Instrumental for the Empowerment of Rural Women Shashi Kanta Varma

This research was conducted with the specific objectives to study and analyse the profile and entrepreneurial traits of members of self-help groups, to investigate the empowerment of women through participation in selected entrepreneurial activities, to study the marketing networks of entrepreneurial units and isolate the factors affecting empowerment. The study revealed that the respondents had medium to low level of overall empowerment. Economic empowerment of women ranked first followed by social, entrepreneurial and technological empowerment. Positive and significant correlation was found between socio-economic, psychological, communication and entrepreneurial variables and overall empowerment. Impact of SHG was on decrease in domestic violence followed by impact on social and economic aspects of life. Nearly three fourth of the respondents had medium enterprise satisfaction. Cognitive and infrastructural constraints were considered major constraints by the respondents. It was observed that no systematic network was established for the marketing of products. Thus, strategies were suggested for the marketing network and for the empowerment of women through SHGs.