Women empowerment through micro-entrepreneurship development in rural areas of Pakistan

Socio cultural and economic structures subordinate women to men in rural areas of Pakistan. Such oppressive structures can be changed by empowering women, and micro entrepreneurship is the key to achieve those goals. Women's empowerment is to stand against the patriarchy and break up the limitations in society. The present study is an attempt to investigate the economic, social, decision making, and legal empowerment of women through women's micro-entrepreneurship in rural areas of Pakistan. Women micro-entrepreneurs of the district Ghizer, Gilgit Baltistan are taken as a sample for the study. The study is significant because it attempts to measure and explore women's empowerment through micro-entrepreneurship development in rural areas of Pakistan. Furthermore, there is very scant coverage of Pakistan in women's empowerment through micro-entrepreneurship development research. The study is cross-sectional and exploratory in nature. The sample is comprised of 150 microentrepreneurs. Women's empowerment through micro-entrepreneurship is taken as a predictor variable while socio economic, decision making, and legal empowerment is taken as criterion. Indicators such as freedom to use earnings, contribution in financial matters, control over assets, quality of living standards, freedom of mobility, awareness, and freedom of decision making are used to measure women's empowerment. Quantitative data was collected through a self-administered structured questionnaire. The data was analyzed using a statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 25. Descriptive and multiple linear regression analysis was adopted for the final output. Quantitative data was analyzed using simple descriptive statistical procedures involving cross-tabulations and frequency distributions. KMO and Bartlett's test, ANOVA test, and multiple other tests were used to check the feasibility of the model. The results of the study revealed that women were empowered economically through micro-entrepreneurship, but they are lagging behind in the areas of legal empowerment, social empowerment, and decision-making empowerment. Keywords: Decision making empowerment, Legal empowerment, Microenterprises, Micro-entrepreneurship, Socio-Economic empowerment, Women's empowerment.