Impact of Demographics, Social Capital and Participation in Income Generating Activities (IGAs) on Economic Empowerment of Rural Women in Bangladesh

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the participation, social capital and women’s economic empowerment in different income generating activities in the rural area of Bangladesh. The paper is based on primarydata collected from randomly selected 100 women in two villages of South SurmaUpazila in Sylhet district of Bangladesh.A structured questionnaire was used for the purpose of data collection. The researcher used descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA and correlation and regression analysis. The findings indicate that demographics background (age, education, occupation, communication media exposure, credit received and training received)have positive impact on participation, social capital and economic empowerment of rural women. Pearson correlation showed that there was significant relationship between participation, social capital and economic empowerment of ruralwomen. The mediation effect of social capital on the relationship between participation and economic empowerment was confirmed by regression analysis.