Although it is not always clearly stated, the microfinance movement has been primarily targeted at women (Armendariz de Aghion & Morduch, 2005: 1 79; Khawari, 2004: 6). Despite the fact that not all microfinance institutions focus specifically on women, many data and much information support this argument. The Microcredit Summit
42 Campaign Report for the year 2000 reported that 75% of the microfinance clients were women (Microcredit-Summit-Campaign, 2000: 1). The Grameen Bank of Bangladesh serves over two million borrowers, 95% of whom are women with repayment rates as high as 99% (Hashemi & Morshed 1997, cited in Khawari, 2004: 6). Also, in Africa and Latin America, the statistics show that the greater percentage of the MFIs are women (Khawari, 2004: 6).
With regard to the empowerment role of micro finance programmes toward women, Mayoux (2001 :246) argues that there are three underlying paradigms that can be understood from the current views of women's empowerment in microfinance. First is the financial self-sustainability paradigm. This economic empowerment stems from the consideration arising from the high female repayment rate in micro credit programmes. This is evidenced by the Grameen Bank, which shows that only 1.4% of women were struggling and 3.7% were irregular in repaying the loans, while 3.7% of the male borrowers were struggling, and 9.7% were irregular with repayments in 1994 (Khandker et aI., 1995: 76). Similarly, the field experience of Grameen Bank's replications in southern Mexico shows that women are better about repaying loans than are men (Armendariz de Aghion & Morduch, 2005: 183). This financial self-sustainability paradigm in microfinance means that if women's access to microfinance programmes is increased, it will enable them to increase incomes through microenterprise, and thus would increase their control over income and resources.
The second paradigm is the poverty alleviation paradigm. This paradigm is inspired by the view of the integrated meaning of poverty as has been mentioned above. The reason for targeting women is the higher level of female poverty than male, and the household responsibility. Women are over-represented among the poorest of the poor, and are too often oppressed by their husbands (Armendariz de Aghion & Morduch, 2005: 183). Women also tend to spend more of their increased income on their households, children's education and family welfare. Hence, improving women's income means improving the welfare of their families (UNCDF, 2002: 1).Thus the focus is not only for increasing the income of female borrowers, but also for improving well-being and to enable women to initiate the broader social and political changes they desire. Further, increasing women's access to micro finance programmes is seen as increasing their status in the household and community, giving them greater confidence, and freedom in
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household decision making. Thus, the main focus is on the integrated approach to alleviation of poverty and to vulnerability, as well as increasing the well-being of the poorest households. This means that the empowerment role of microfinance is to increase welfare, community development, and self-sufficiency (Mayoux, 200 1 : 247).
The third paradigm is feminist empowerment, which is inspired by the international women's movement regarding the gender impact of microfinance. In this case, women are seen as the objects of mistreatment towards gender equity and human rights and the focus of policy intervention is towards the economic, social and political empowerment of women (Mayoux, 2001: 247). The gender inequality views come from such areas as the job market, in which poor women tend to work longer hours for less pay. Women are lagging behind in many key indicators of economic development, and many obstacles hamper their accessing of social, legal and economic development (World Bank, 1 990). In this regard, women's empowerment is seen as more than economic empowerment, improvement of well-being and addressing gender inequality. It is more about a process of change in achieving individual internal capacity and mobilising efforts to change gender subordination by both women and men. Thus, in this case, micro finance is seen as an entry point into this process (Armendariz de Aghion &
Morduch, 2005; Mayoux, 2001).
However, criticisms are also addressed to the success of microfinance in empowering women. Hulme and Mosley (1996: 128) argue that there is a naivety of belief that every credit given to a woman contributes to the strengthening of the economic and social position of women. In many cases, loans that are initially targeted to women are either fully or significantly controlled by men. For example, research conducted by Goetz and Gupta (1996: 47) in B angladesh revealed that only 37% of the loans provided by four credit institutions (Grameen Bank, BRAC, PROSHIKA, and BRDB) are controlled by women, a further 24% are partially controlled by women, while the rest are fully controlled by men. Men, in this case, are responsible for - or have control over - the productive process, while women are responsible for providing labour inputs. (Goetz &
Gupta, 1996: 47). These findings have led to a conclusion that credit programmes have relatively little effect on women's empowerment.
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Hulme and Mosley ( 1 996: 1 29) further argue that the female participation rate in any credit programmes cannot be assumed as an indicator of women's empowerment. This is evidenced by the study conducted by Schuler and Hasyemi ( 1 994 cited in Hulme & Mosley, 1 996: 1 29) regarding measuring women's empowerment through the use of contraceptives. It reveals that although the empowerment score is high, contraceptive use by women is not significant. Therefore, it is suggested that thorough research should be done regarding the usage of loans before deciding whether or not a credit programme has significantly empowered women.