Multidimensional Empowerment and Sustainable Livelihood Resilience Among Rural Self-Help Group Women: Evidence from Muzaffarnagar District, Uttar Pradesh

Abstract

Purpose: This paper examines how three dimensions of rural women's empowerment — economic, social and psychological — relate to sustainable livelihood outcomes among Self-Help Group (SHG) members in Muzaffarnagar district, Uttar Pradesh, and tests whether exposure to two flagship welfare schemes, the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana–National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM) and Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP), operates through distinct empowerment channels.

Design/methodology/approach: A structured, five-point Likert questionnaire was administered to 50 rural SHG women in an exploratory field-level inquiry that forms the first phase of a larger planned survey of 1,000 respondents. Constructs were DAY-NRLM and BBBP scheme exposure, economic empowerment (EE), social empowerment (SE), psychological empowerment (PE), and sustainable livelihood (SL). The measurement and structural model were estimated using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), with construct reliability, convergent validity (AVE) and discriminant validity (Fornell–Larcker, HTMT) assessed, and structural path significance tested via nonparametric bootstrapping (5,000 resamples).

Findings: DAY-NRLM exposure significantly predicted economic empowerment (β = .40, p = .022), while BBBP exposure significantly predicted psychological empowerment (β = .44, p < .001) — evidence that the two schemes operate through distinct empowerment pathways rather than a single undifferentiated channel. Economic empowerment showed the strongest path toward sustainable livelihood (β = .37) but reached only marginal significance under bootstrapping (p = .056); social and psychological empowerment were not significant direct predictors of livelihood outcomes at this sample size. The hypothesised moderation of the economic-empowerment path by SHG membership duration was directionally consistent with a diminishing-returns pattern but was not statistically significant (p = .175). Composite reliability exceeded .70 for all six constructs; average variance extracted fell marginally below the .50 threshold for two constructs (EE, SL).

Practical implications: The differentiated pathways suggest DAY-NRLM and BBBP function as complements rather than substitutes — pairing credit- and livelihood-focused interventions with attitudinal and awareness-focused ones may outperform either scheme alone. The strongest observed route to livelihood outcomes, via economic empowerment, warrants confirmation with a larger sample before firm programmatic recommendations are drawn.

Originality/value: The paper contributes primary field evidence, analysed with a full PLS-SEM measurement and bootstrapped structural model, from a historically under-researched district of western Uttar Pradesh, and reports transparently where conclusions are sensitive to estimation method rather than presenting only the more favourable figures.