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Microfinance programs, by providing financial services to economically disadvantaged individuals, generally women, are intended to help poor self-employ and become financially independent. Earlier research in India has documented both positive and negative consequences of microfinance programs on women, from financial independence to domestic abuse. However, most of the research has been geographically limited to the southern states of the country, with a matured microfinance industry, and has given little attention to how variations in cultural practices across different regions of the country may influence the impact of microfinance programs on its members. To fill the gap in the existing literature, three related studies of Indian women were conducted. The first study was a qualitative study of 35 women engaged in microfinance programs in the northern region of India. The study found that women engaged in microfinance programs reported having increased social networks, higher confidence and increased social awareness. The second and third studies used nationally representative data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) 2005-2006. Controlling for a variety of other individual-level and community-level characteristics, the second study examined if getting a microloan affected women’s access to public spaces, and the third examined if getting such a loan influenced married women’s participation in household decision-making. Both studies further investigated if the microloan effect on these dimensions of women’s empowerment varied by the normative context of woman’s respective communities. The results indicated that, all else equal, women who had ever taken a microloan were more likely to go alone to places outside their home such as market, health clinics and places outside the community compared to women who had never taken such a loan. Getting a microloan also had a positive effect on women’s participation in decisions about large household purchases and husband’s earnings. The hypothesized moderating effect of the normative context of women’s respective communities was found only for women’s participation in decisions about large household purchases. Getting a microloan had a stronger positive effect on women’s participation in these decisions if they lived in communities with restrictive gender norms.

The purpose of this dissertation is to establish the extent to which women's membership in self-help groups and their involvement in various activities of these groups, with particular reference to Micro Credit programs, impacted their socio-economic empowerment. The objective is to study the socio-economic empowerment impact factors (evidences) in women members of micro-credit self-help groups in rural India upon the self, the family and the community. / Data selected for analyses was based on an operational model of empowerment that encompassed indicators of purported empowerment at the personal, family and community levels. The working hypotheses in quantitative analyses are that there are significant differences in income, savings, assets, expenditure, basic amenities, as well as attitudinal and behavioral changes in the rural women before and after their group membership. / The qualitative interviews helped to assess the life conditions of the women as the process of empowerment before and after their participation in self-help group micro-credit program. The qualitative interviews were to corroborate the veracity of reported progress from the survey to shed some light on the specific factors that contributed to their empowerment in line with their present quality of life at personal, family and community levels. Hence, the impact of the program is measured as the difference in the magnitude of a given parameter between the pre-and post-SHG situations by comparing the life condition of members before joining the self-help group to their condition three years after joining.

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This thesis examines the varied and contradictory ideas about rural women and their needs that are produced and circulate within development discourses and projects. It pays particular attention to the multiple actors involved in the production of such ideas and the relations of power that determine which ideas gain authority. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the Kullu District of Himachal Pradesh, India, it looks at women's participation in three different development projects: a women's savings and credit group, a broad-based development NGO, and the women's village organizations (mahila mandals ). These case studies demonstrate how development organizations engage with local gender meanings, often working to reinforce or even exploit inequalities, rather than challenge them. As women are targeted by such projects, they creatively receive, shape, and negotiate the ideas and representations that they encounter about themselves. These encounters limit, and sometimes foster, women's potential for new political identities and agency.

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Cette thèse est composée de deux partie. La partie 1 (chapitre 1, 2 et 3) s’intéresse à la dimension spatiale du phénomène microfinancier. Le chapitre 1 revient sur l’histoire récente du système bancaire indien et plus particulièrement sur sa capacité en termes d’inclusion financière dont nous analysons la distribution spatiale. Dans le chapitre 2, après avoir dressé une histoire du champ microfinancier indien, nous procédons à une analyse de la distribution et de l’évolution de la méthodologie microfinancière dominante en Inde, à savoir, les Self-Help Group. Le chapitre 3 présente une analyse spatiale de l’offre de service d’une institution de microfinance particulière. A cette fin, nous utilisons une base de données unique permettant de suivre l’évolution spatiale d’une institution particulière depuis le début de ses activités. <p>La partie 2 (chapitre 4 et 5) s’intéresse aux limites du financement du secteur agricole par la microfinance et aux aspects politiques de cette dernière. Le chapitre 4 procède à une analyse des déterminants du financement agricole en Inde. En revenant sur la crise microfinancière 2006 en Andhra Pradesh, le chapitre 5 complète nos analyses économétriques par une analyse des acteurs, de leurs motivations et de leurs contraintes afin de mettre à jour la dimension politique de la construction microfinancière.<p>La conclusion explicite la notion de construction donnée en intitulé. L’élaboration des services microfinanciers, leurs diffusions sur le territoire indien ainsi que leurs utilisations, détournements et réappropriations produisent la construction spatiale de la microfinance. <p> / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished