Enhancing Women’s Empowerment through Involvement in Self-Help Groups

Self-Help Groups (SHGs) have emerged as powerful instruments for promoting social and economic empowerment among women. SHGs act as catalysts for transforming the lives of women by enhancing their income, decision-making ability, leadership skills, and overall participation in community development. Both purposive and random sampling techniques were used for the selection of district, blocks, gram panchayat, villages and the respondents. The total sample size for the study was 120. The response was obtained from each individual respondent through pre-tested structured interview schedule prepared for the collection of data. The collected data were systematically tabulated and analyzed using appropriate statistical tools such as frequency, percentage, mean score, standard deviation, rank order, correlation coefficient, and multiple regression. Majority of the respondents (71.67%) had a medium level of empowerment followed by high (20.00%) and low (8.33%) respectively. Among the socio- economic variables, family size, occupation, social participation, land holding and annual income has exerted much impact on the empowerment of the farm women which was obtained through correlation analysis. The study highlights the transformative role of SHGs as effective grassroots platforms for women's empowerment and emphasizes the need for continued support through targeted policy measures, capacity-building initiatives, and strengthened institutional linkages to enhance their overall effectiveness and long-term impact. The findings underscore the need for a comprehensive policy approach to strengthen the supportive ecosystem for SHGs and enhance their sustained contribution to the empowerment of rural women and overall socio-economic development.