Around the world, male violence against women is a major challenge for public health. Social workers often meet women exposed to domestic violence and therefore need qualified knowledge in how to treat and meet these women in the best way possible. Empowerment for preventing violence against women is an approach to support the victims in order to reduce risks of further domestic violence. The aim of the study is to get an enhanced knowledge of empowerment as an evaluative assessment, as used in social work with women objected to domestic violence. Problems and possibilities for change, in applying the model, are examined as relating to the different backgrounds of the women. This study is a systematic analysis of literature and social science articles on the topic, and the analysis applies to empowerment a theory. The result of the study shows that abused women´s possibilities to enforce empowerment through this model is affected by their individual basic conditions and circumstances. Some factors that contribute, to success or failure using the model, are religion, education, financial resources, residence and social context. Evaluating the empowerment model in preventing violence against women through a systems theory approach present a number of shortcomings from using the method. The models are often effective only in a specific setting and applied mostly through individually adapted support. Its usefulness for support of women around the world, affected by violence, is limited whereas background and living conditions differ. Men are not being included in the efforts for change. Another key aspect is rigid and entrenched structures of culture, religion and societal norms that present obstacles. Without support from family, friends and the community it becomes even more difficult for women to change their lives.

Partendo da una concettualizzazione multidimensionale della povertà, il presente lavoro di ricerca studia l’effetto prodotto dalla partecipazione a programmi di microcredito su specifiche dimensioni di genere: l’empowerment delle donne e la violenza domestica. Il primo capitolo analizza la letteratura empirica sul tema in un’ottica critica, gettando le basi per lo sviluppo dei successivi. La seconda parte esamina la relazione fra partecipazione al microcredito e due distinte dimensioni di empowerment utilizzando un modello ad equazioni strutturali (SEM). Accanto alla partecipazione a tali programmi, considero, quale potenziale causa del processo di empowerment femminile, le attitudini maschili in merito al ruolo svolto dalle donne all’interno e al di fuori del contesto familiare. Dai risultati emerge un’associazione positiva fra microcredito e dimensioni di empowerment considerate, ma l’effetto delle attitudini maschili non è significativo. Infine, nell’ultimo capitolo esamino come la partecipazione al microcredito, congiuntamente ad altri fattori socio-demografici, influenza il subire violenza domestica e le attitudini femminili circa la giustificazione della stessa in determinati contesti. Dall’analisi empirica emerge un’associazione positiva tra microcredito e violenza domestica, mentre il partecipare a tali programmi non produce alcun effetto significativo sulle attitudini femminili in merito alla giustificazione della stessa. / The focus of this dissertation is about the influence of participation in microcredit programs on gendered dimensions of poverty. Specifically, I refer to multidimensional poverty in terms of women’s empowerment and domestic violence. The first chapter reviews the empirical literature on microcredit and poverty in a critical perspective and lays the foundations for the two later chapters. The second part explores the relationship between participation in microcredit programs and two distinct dimensions of women’s empowerment using a structural equation model with categorical observed variables. I consider a set of potential causes of the empowerment dimensions including participation in microcredit programs and men’s attitudes towards women’s role in intra-household relationships and in the social context. Interestingly, the former is positively associated with empowerment while the men’s perception about the women’s role do not produce a significant effect on both empowerment dimensions. The last chapter investigates how participation in microcredit programs along with other socio-demographic factors affect the likelihood to experience physical violence and the likelihood of women’s beating justification in different situations. The most interesting result concerns the influence of microcredit on the outcomes variables: it doesn’t affect women’s beliefs about beating justification but it is positively associated with physical violence.