Socio-economic Status of Women Collective Members in Bihar and Jharkhand: An Empirical Assessment of Determinants and Differentials

Abstract

Women collectives, organised principally as self-help groups (SHGs) under the National Rural Livelihoods Mission and its state missions, have become a central instrument of rural transformation in eastern India. Yet rigorous, multidimensional evidence on the socio-economic status (SES) of their members and on the factors that differentiate the upwardly mobile from the persistently disadvantaged remains thin for the lagging states of Bihar and Jharkhand. This study assesses the socio-economic status of 300 women collective members drawn through multi-stage purposive sampling from six districts across the two states, with a particular focus on members engaged in food-based collective enterprise. A structured schedule captured demographic, economic, and institutional attributes, from which a weighted composite SES index was constructed. Analytical procedures comprised descriptive profiling, a paired-samples t-test of pre- and post-membership household income, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of socio-economic empowerment, Garrett's ranking of contributory factors, and ordinary least squares regression of SES determinants. Members reported a mean increase in annual household income of approximately 53 per cent following collective membership (t(299) = 18.42, p < .001, d = 1.06). EFA extracted five interpretable dimensions of empowerment explaining 75.7 per cent of variance (KMO = 0.814). Regression revealed that educational attainment, membership tenure, institutional credit access, training participation, and landholding jointly explained 36 per cent of the variance in SES. Bihar members recorded a modestly higher SES than their Jharkhand counterparts, reflecting the relative maturity of the JEEViKA programme. The findings underscore that collective membership improves livelihoods but does so unevenly; targeted investments in adult literacy, skill formation, and credit deepening are required to convert participation into durable socio-economic mobility.