Abstract:
Women empowerment has been highlighted as a critical element in the
development of the Sri Lankan economy, particularly as a developing nation. As a
result of meeting this criterion, microfinance organizations are serving as a role
model for women entrepreneurs' empowerment. However, the inconclusive and
dearth of evidence in previous research findings related to this theme has been
reported. Therefore, this researchaimed to determine the effect of microfinance on
the empowerment of women entrepreneurs in the Polonnaruwa district. The
researchers identified microfinance facilities using four dimensions, namely
microcredit, micro-savings, training and advisory services, and micro-insurance
facilities. The population of this study was women entrepreneurs in the
Polonnaruwa district. By employing the stratified sampling method, 120 women
entrepreneurs in the Polonnaruwa district were selected, representing 10
entrepreneurs from each divisional secretariat division of Dimbulagala,
Thamankaduwa,Lankapura, Walikanda, Madirigiriya, Elahera, and Higurakgoda.
Moreover, the study uses a structured questionnaire to gather primary data for the
analysis, and hypotheses were tested using correlation analysis and multiple
regression analysis. The overall resultsrevealed that microfinance can be used as a
tool for empowering women entrepreneurs inSri Lanka. This is because, the results
of the analyses indicated a positive impact of micro- credit, micro-savings, and
training and advisory services towards the empowerment of women
entrepreneurs. However, micro-insurance did not report an impact on the
empowerment of women entrepreneurs for the sample. This study contributes to
expanding the extant literature by highlighting the empowerment of women
entrepreneurs as a vital factor to economic empowerment. Moreover, this study
suggests an awarenessof the interest rates of credits, more training programs, and
develop the withdrawal procedure of the micro-savings as important factors to
keep microfinance services for enhancing the empowerment of women
entrepreneurs.
