Title: Microfinance and social pressure in India: a study of SKS

Authors: Mathew Joseph

Addresses: Panackakuzhiyil, Teekoy P.O., Kottayam, Kerala, Pin – 686580, India

Abstract: This paper uses a combination of secondary analysis and observation to explore the role of social pressure in the micro-finance industry in India. It reviews the arguments for micro-finance and explores its rapid growth in India. It then examines some of the ways in which micro-finance was alleged to be implicated in a wave of rural suicides. Taking one organisation it explores its formal and informal practices and raises the issue of the extent to which the gaps involve organisational silences which may have contributed to difficult social pressures on the poor in order to sustain high repayment levels.

Keywords: microfinance; poverty; India; suicide; organisational silence; social pressure; rural poor; high repayment levels; rural communities.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMCP.2012.049949

International Journal of Management Concepts and Philosophy, 2012 Vol.6 No.3, pp.189 - 210

Published online: 17 Apr 2015 *

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