Abstract:
The socio-economic growth and development of Migori County is to a great extent
dependent on farming and small scale enterprise. Majority of the people working in these
sectors are low income earners whose main source of credit facilities is the micro lending
institutions. The aim of the present study was to analyse the effects of microcredit facilities
on the welfare of households in Suna East Sub-County. The study focussed on the
microcredit customers who got loan from the five selected microfinance institutions in
Suna East Sub-County. A sample size of 306 respondents was obtained for the study using
Krajcie & Morgans' table,1970. A survey was conducted to carry out the study in which
questionnaires was developed to collect data from the respondents. Multiple regression
analysis was used to test the proposed hypotheses of the study and to verify the association
between variables. The results of the multiple regression analysis test revealed that there
was a significant effect of microcredit in improving household's welfare status and living
standard of the microcredit users in the Sub-County. Both descriptive and inferential
statistics were used to draw the results from the study. Through descriptive analysis, the
study clearly demonstrated that microcredit has played a positive role in improving the
household status of customers after getting the loan. In this regard the study observed that
microcredit played the positive role in changing and improving the living standards,
income, diet patterns, health status and children's education of the respondents. The current
study did not put into consideration the effect of respondents background characteristics on
household welfare. The study recommends that emphasis on the importance of loan
services on household welfare should be made and the amounts borrowed be increased so
as to meet the needs of the residents, residents should be encouraged to save with the
microcredit facilities so as to raise their chances of gaining support from the facilities and
lastly capacity building among households should be maintained so that residents can
maximize potentials within the microcredit facilities.
