Factors empowering women in Indian self-help group programs

We evaluate the impact of economic and non-economic factors on women's empowerment of Self-Help Group (SHG) members. We estimate a structural equation model (SEM) and correct for ordinality in the data to account for the impact of the latent factors on women's empowerment. Our SEM results reveal that for the SHG members, the economic factor is the most effective in empowering women. Greater autonomy and social attitudes also have a significant women empowerment impact.