Understanding female empowerment: The impact of offering goal setting training to couples in the context of a microfinance intervention for women

Previous research on the impact of offering access to microfinance (micro loan and training) to women provided mixed results with respect to female empowerment. We propose that empowerment is a three-level concept and should be investigated at the personal, relational, and societal level. In the current research we examined empowerment specifically at the personal (self-esteem, self-efficacy) and relational level (relational dynamics in behavioural task) based on qualitative inquiries. We examined the impact of offering goal-setting training and the impact of asking spouses to collaborate in this training on these levels of empowerment. We conducted two field experiments in which we compared couples in an individual goal setting training (n=24, n=23), collaborative goal setting training (n=23, n=25), and no goal setting training (control group, n = 21, n=26). First results show most clearly that individual training may benefit women on a personal level.