📄 Abstract
Women’s economic agency concerns the practical ability to make and act upon consequential economic choices, including control over income, productive resources, savings, enterprise decisions, and household expenditures. Microfinance is frequently expected to strengthen this agency, yet evidence shows that account ownership or loan receipt alone does not guarantee control, capability, or bargaining power. This article develops and tests an integrated framework linking four dimensions of microfinance participation—access to microcredit, savings participation, financial and enterprise capability support, and group participation/social capital—to women’s economic agency. The reconstructed measurement results supplied with the study indicate excellent internal consistency across the five constructs (Cronbach’s α = .900–.945; overall α = .967). After correcting an apparent transposition in the source table, composite reliability ranges from .704 to .744 and average variance extracted from .510 to .680. The reported confirmatory factor model shows acceptable fit (χ²/df = 2.004, CFI = .915, TLI = .921, PNFI = .616, RMSEA = .062), while the structural model also shows acceptable fit (χ²/df = 2.341, CFI = .939, TLI = .915, PNFI = .727, RMSEA = .065). The supplied hypothesis table reports p < .001 for all four direct relationships. Because respondent-level data and coefficient output were not included, effect sizes and explanatory power cannot be independently estimated and are deliberately not fabricated. The paper contributes a multidimensional, agency-centred model, a complete questionnaire, and a reproducible multiple-regression protocol for final estimation once the dataset is available. The central practical implication is that microfinance should be designed as a bundle of usable finance, savings, capability development, and collective support rather than as credit delivery alone.
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📚 How to Cite:
Shaik Khwajabi, Dr P V Mohini, Prof, P Arun Kumar , LINKAGES BETWEEN WOMEN’S ECONOMIC AGENCY AND MICROFINANCE PARTICIPATION: A QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS , Volume 13 , Issue 8, August 2026, EPRA International Journal of Environmental Economics, Commerce and Educational Management(ECEM) , Pages: 1 - 13 , DOI: https://doi.org/10.36713/epra31129