Empowering vulnerable microfinance women through entrepreneurship : opportunities, challenges and the way forward.

Abstract

Purpose: This review explores how vulnerabilities arising from physical impairments, age, widowhood, forced displacement due to war or natural disasters, and sexual orientation affect women’s microfinance related entrepreneurial activities and economic empowerment. Design/methodology/approach: This paper is a structured literature review and uses PRISMA method. The paper also uses agency, resources, and achievement dimensions of empowerment to assess the findings. Findings: Our review reveals that although microfinance services promote women entrepreneurship, they also exacerbate exclusion and further discrimination. Individual, household, institutional and community level structures shape women’s agencies to access and utilise loans and conduct entrepreneurial activities; hence, ultimately economic empowerment. Originality: The originality of this paper arises from the conceptual model we synthesised from our review which illustrates how vulnerable women’s agency is shaped by resources and how it affects their achievements in relation to entrepreneurial activities.