Identifying factors governing attitude of rural women towards Self- Help Groups using principal component analysis Sandeep Patil a, * , Kiran Kokate b a Dr. Balasaheb Sawant Konkan Agricultural University, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Ratnagiri 416 712, Maharashtra State, India b Mahatma Phule Agricultural University, Rahuri, Dist: Ahmednagar 413 722, Maharashtra State, India article info Article history: Received 9 October 2016 Received in revised form 22 April 2017 Accepted 8 August 2017 Keywords: Microfinance Self-Help Groups Financial inclusion Disadvantaged districts Summated rating technique Principal component analysis abstract Self-Help Groups-Bank Linkage Program (SHG-BLP) had expanded significantly and emerged as a dominant model of microfinance in India. National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) had constituted the teams of acclaimed scientists, technocrats, and practitioners to evaluate the performance and impact of SHG-Bank Linkage Program. These researchers emphasised only physical aspects of the program, and specifically determined the impact of SHG microfinance on the socioeco- nomic aspect of the rural poor. In this context, the present study aimed at exploring the attitudinal aspect of rural women associated with SHGs. The study consists of a multistage random sample of ‘240’ women SHG members. A well-structured interview schedule, consisting of summated rating attitude scale was administered to the respondents. The findings illustrate that 43.34 percent of the rural women had ‘favourable’ and 26.66 percent had ‘strongly favourable’ attitude towards SHGs. The factor analysis using the principal component method brought forward ‘coping up ability’, ‘personality traits’, ‘resource uti- lisation and building’, ‘entrepreneurial attributes’, ‘organizational governance’, ‘financial inclusion’ and ‘economic upliftment’ are the precursors of attitude. These seven components could explain 76.02 percent of the total variance in the attitude. Further, study suggests that policy makers, financial in- stitutions and technocrats may consider these seven factors while planning, promoting, implementing, and evaluating any microfinance programme, especially in developing countries. The study also provides a valid and reliable instrument for measuring the attitude of rural women towards SHGs. This Likert-type attitude scale could be widely used in future researches, especially by the scholars from low-income countries for achieving more accurate and reliable results. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Globally, more than 800 million people are still living on less than US$ 1.25 a day, many lacking access to adequate food, clean drinking water and sanitation. Rapid economic growth in countries like China and India has lifted millions out of povery, but progress has been uneven. Women are more likely to live in poverty than men due to unequal access to paid work, education and property. At the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit on 25 September 2015, world leaders adopted the agenda for sustainable development, which includes a set of seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and tackle climate change by 2030. Microfinance has emerged as a frontier instrument to alleviate poverty in many developing countries (Johnson and Rogaly, 1997; Gibbons and Meehan, 2002; Armendariz and Morduch, 2005; Bakhtiari, 2011). Microfinance would act as a vital dynamic mechanism towards attaining SDGs of ‘no poverty’ and ‘zero hunger’ by 2030. The microfinancial programs extend small loans to poor people for self- employment activities; thus, allowing the clients to achieve a better quality of life (Rahman, 1995; Hussain, 1998; Morduch, 2000). Many innovative models of microfinance are being implemented in the world for achieving the goal of financial inclusion. The term financial inclusion denotes delivery of financial services at an affordable cost to the vast sections of the disadvantaged and low- income groups. The various financial services may include access to credit, savings, insurance and, payments and remittance facilities from all type of formal financial institutes. An estimated 2 billion working-age adults globally have no access to the types of formal * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: sspatilextension@gmail.com (S. Patil), kdkokate@gmail.com (K. Kokate). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Rural Studies journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jrurstud http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2017.08.003 0743-0167/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Journal of Rural Studies 55 (2017) 157e167