Mapping the intellectual structure of microfinance and women's empowerment: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) emphasize promoting and protecting women's rights and privileges. As a result, an increasing body of academic literature describes the various actions taken by different stakeholders to empower women. Amongst the initiatives implemented in many nations, microfinance and financial inclusion programs play a major role. This article aims to present an overview and synthesis of the research on the notion and practices of microfinance and its influence on entrepreneur women's empowerment. In order to do so, this study uses bibliometric techniques over a selection of papers extracted from the Web of Science database, to disentangle the knowledge structure of this academic field. According to our findings, the study of microfinance and women's empowerment is growing, with 470 publications, 963 authors, 67 nations and 36 research areas. Research topics include poverty reduction, gender issues in entrepreneurship, microfinance and women empowerment, and women in microcredit. An additional bibliographic coupling analysis has revealed the hottest research topics, showing the main gaps in the literature that suggest potential directions for future research