The Impact of Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) on Women Empowerment and Poverty Alleviation in Pakistan

Abstract

Women empowerment is considered as central goal of development interventions in the world. However, the situation regarding women’s empowerment in Pakistan is depressing as women are one of the most vulnerable segments of Pakistani society. They are exposed to severe poverty and gender discrimination due to economic and cultural limitations that impede their development. Benazir Income Support Program in Pakistan provides unconditional cash grants to poor women in hope of achieving its objective of poverty alleviation and women empowerment. This study aims to investigate the impact of BISP unconditional cash transfer program on women empowerment xv and poverty alleviation. The study breaks down women empowerment into four types of empowerments that together lead to women empowerment. These are political, social, economic and psychological empowerment. The study employs a qualitative and quantitative approach involving the collection of both primary and secondary data in order to determine whether a statistically significant relationship exists between BISP unconditional cash transfer program, women empowerment and poverty alleviation For this purpose, SPSS analysis and Difference-in-difference technique were used to determine the statistical relationship between the independent and dependent variables coupled with a thematic analysis of the qualitative data to identify distinctive patterns in the data. The results of the empirical analysis thus revealed that BISP unconditional Cash Transfer program does have positive impact on beneficiary’s women empowerment and poverty alleviation but this impact is only moderate. There is a need to either reform the existing program or introduce new programs that ensure that there is a marked difference between the differences of empowerment of beneficiaries and non- beneficiaries so that the program has more effectiveness.