MICROFINANCE SERVICES AS A TRIGGERII\G MECHANISM FOR EMPOWERING WOMEN'S ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE BADULLA DISTRICT

Abstract

In the modern world, women are unable to access the formal financial services compare to men. Especially in rural areas like the Badulla district, women are facing financial barriers due to cultural, social and economic factors. Microfinance services play a crucial role for empowering women entrepreneurs by helping them to overcoming these barriers to financial access and promoting self-reliance. Therefore, the study focuses on the impact of microfinunce s"rvi6es on empowerment of the women's entrepreneurship in the Badulla district. Thus, the study objectives are to identify the level of microfinance services on empowerment of women entrepreneurs, to identifu the relationship between microfinance services and empowerment of women entrepreneurs and to identify the impact of microfinance services on the empowerment of women entrepreneurs in the Badulla district. The survey was carried out among the 294 registered women entrepreneurs in the Sri Lanka Women's Bureau in the Badulla district. A simple random sampling method was used to create the sampling frame and quantitative research approach was adopted for this study. In this study, the statistical tool that used to analyze the levels of variables are mean and standard deviation Values, while relationships. were measured by Pearson correlation and impact was measured by multiple regression. Moreover, the result shows significant positive impact of microfinance services on the empowerment of women's entrepreneurship. Hence, this study helps to identity the contribution of microfinance services to empower women entrepreneurs.