A Study of Socio-Economic Conditions of SHG Members

Abstract

The role women play in society and the images society has of them have developed not simply from the exigencies of biology and social situations but are rather deeply rooted in the myths and legends and the religion of the culture. Empowerment of women has been recognized as the key route for the development of any society. Women Self help groups have often been considered as a strategic way to organize the poor women into homogenous groups and make way for channelizing services like micro finance, micro enterprise and micro insurance with necessary linkages to technology, market support and other needed input. Life of rural women is still underdeveloped due to various reasons like illiteracy and low income. SHGs play a very important role in developing the women in the rural areas. Government needs to interfere and contribute towards the growth of institutions promoting SHGs as these institutions have to manage with their limited finances. In this study an effort has been made to understand the socio- economic conditions of members of SHGs in rural parts of Dakshina Kannada district. Study  has been done by taking the SHGs  promoted by an NGO called SKDRDP ( Shree Kshetra Dharmasthala Rural Development Project) which is a pioneer institution in promoting SHGs all over Karnataka. For the purpose of this study sample has been selected by using multi stage sampling. Three taluks of Dakshina Kannada district were taken for the study, again one valaya has been selected from each taluk, from which a small size of SHGs were selected as respondents.