Effect of Micro-credit on Happiness and Manifest Anxiety of the Rural Poor in Bangladesh

Abstract

The present study was designed to measure and compare the levels of Happiness and Manifest Anxiety of the Rural Poor Micro-credit recipient and Non-recipient respondents in Bangladesh. The Title of the research work is ‘Effect of Micro-credit on Happiness and Manifest Anxiety of the Rural Poor in Bangladesh’. To arrive at the end of the investigation of the study, a thousand respondents were used as subjects. All respondents were female and they were selected from different regions of the country. Among them, five hundred were Micro-credit recipient (experimental group), and rests were Non-recipient (control group).

A Personal Information Blank of various items was applied on the respondents to collect personal data. The items of the questionnaire covers Age, Occupation, Monthly Family Income, Education, and Micro-credit based information etc. Along with the PIB, two Bangla adaptation Psychological Scales - a) Memorial University of Newfoundland Scale of Happiness (MUNSH) consists of 24 items (Kozma & Stones, 1980), and b) Taylor’s Manifest Anxiety Scale (TMAS) (Taylor, 1953) were administered to collect data.

Two steps were followed in the sampling and collecting data. Firstly, to select the study area, random sampling was introduced. Secondly, respondents (experimental group) were selected purposively. Respondents of the control group were homogeneous to the experimental group, and the homogeneity was ensured by controlling the variables as age, sex, education, occupation, family size and monthly family income. The following two hypotheses were considered in the present investigation. Hypothesis I: Levels of Happiness of the micro-credit recipients would be higher than that of the non-recipients. Hypothesis II: Levels of Manifest Anxiety of the micro-credit recipients would be lower than that of the non-recipients. The findings of the study are: Initially, in case of Happiness, based on the total data, the result indicates that there was significant effect of micro-credit on Happiness state of the micro-credit recipients. The result indicates that micro-credit to some extent, enhances the level of Happiness of the credit recipients than that of the non-recipients. It is also observed from the study of different micro-credit lending organizations; the results are little bit different from each other. In case of Grameen Bank, there exists a significant difference on the levels of Happiness between the two groups and level of Happiness of the micro-credit recipients is higher. Similar results are observed in case of ASA and others (a combination of different local micro-credit lending organizations). Contrarily, no significant results are observed on Happiness between the comparing groups in case of BRAC and Proshika. Therefore, considering the results as a whole, hypothesis-I can be accepted.

Secondly, in case of Manifest Anxiety based on the entire data, the result shows that there was significant effect of micro-credit on Manifest Anxiety state of the micro-credit recipients. The result signifies that micro-credit to some extent, reduces the level of Manifest Anxiety of the credit recipients than that of the non-recipients. Similar results are observed in case of others (a combination of different local micro-credit lending organizations). In relation to Manifest Anxiety, it is equally observed from the study of different micro-credit lending organizations, the results are slightly different from the results mentioned above. The results are not found significant in case of Grameen Bank, BRAC, ASA and Proshika. Furthermore, in case of BRAC and ASA opposing results were observed between the comparing groups. There, Manifest Anxiety levels of the micro-credit recipients were found slightly higher than that of the non-recipients. However, it may be mentioned from the observation, the second hypothesis, to some extent, may be accepted.