Self-Help Groups as Vehicles of Women’s Empowerment in Urban India: Evidence from 300 SHG Members in Jaipur Metropolitan City, Rajasthan

Gayatri Pandiya

doi:10.70528/IJLRP.v7.i9.2385

Self-Help Groups as Vehicles of Women’s Empowerment in Urban India: Evidence from 300 SHG Members in Jaipur Metropolitan City, Rajasthan

Author(s)	Gayatri Pandiya
Country	India
Abstract	Self-help groups (SHGs) are the principal institutional device through which Indian development policy attempts to convert poor women’s collective savings into economic capability and social voice. The empirical literature on SHGs is substantial but overwhelmingly rural; the urban SHG, operating amid casual work, rented accommodation and thin kinship networks, remains under-studied. This paper examines the role of SHGs in women’s empowerment in Jaipur metropolitan city, Rajasthan, using primary data from 300 women members of groups engaged in handicrafts, food product manufacture, tailoring and embroidery, and allied micro-livelihood activities. A structured schedule incorporating a twenty-four item, five-point Likert battery measured three domains of empowerment — economic, social, and decision-making with institutional support — supplemented by interviews with group office bearers, structured observation and focus group discussions. The findings show a consistently positive but uneven profile. All economic items recorded means between 3.89 and 4.38, the strongest being the savings habit (4.38; 86.00 per cent agreement) and the weakest growth in personal income (3.89). In the decision-making and institutional support domain, means ranged from 3.78 to 4.07, with consultation before borrowing or large expenditure the least developed indicator of all. On composite indices, 53.33 per cent of respondents reached the high economic band, 59.00 per cent the high social band and 46.67 per cent the high decision-making band, while 46.67 per cent recorded high overall empowerment against 46.33 per cent medium. Urban SHGs in Jaipur succeed as instruments of financial discipline, credit substitution and confidence-building, but their transformative potential is limited by weak market linkage, rudimentary packaging and branding, opaque institutional support and the persistence of male authority over large household financial decisions.
Keywords	self-help groups; women’s empowerment; urban livelihoods; microfinance; financial inclusion; decision-making; Jaipur; Rajasthan; DAY-NULM
Field	Arts
Published In	Volume 7, Issue 9, September 2026
Published On	2026-09-02
DOI	https://doi.org/10.70528/IJLRP.v7.i9.2385

View / Download PDF File

About IJLRP Fees & Payment Current Issue Publication Archive	Submit Research Paper Track Submission Status Publication Guidelines Publication Ethics	Join as a Reviewer Editors & Reviewers Get Reviewer Membership Certi.	Website/Journal Policies Usage Policy Content Policies Privacy Policy

Contact Us		+91-9687-828-838	editor@ijlrp.com

International Journal of Leading Research Publication

A Widely Indexed Open Access Peer Reviewed Multidisciplinary Monthly Scholarly International Journal

Self-Help Groups as Vehicles of Women’s Empowerment in Urban India: Evidence from 300 SHG Members in Jaipur Metropolitan City, Rajasthan

Share this