Can Microcredit and Job Under NREGS Jointly Bring More Happiness to the Villagers?

This paper aims to investigate whether access to microfinance loan and job under National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) have any significant impact to bring life satisfaction as well as happiness, an important well-being indicator to the villagers of West Bengal. Here we consider microfinance system under individual liability loan contract and joint liability loan contract separately. This paper shows participation in microfinance programme, size of microcredit and more number of man-days of getting job under NREGS bring more happiness to the village people. It is also established that members of Self-Help Group under SGSY scheme become happier in compare to members of VSSU a microfinance system operating on the basis of individual liability loan contract. This is because most of the members under SGSY scheme are women and that of VSSU are men and the members of Self-Help Group under SGSY scheme have become much more empowered after joining the microfinance programme through forming Self-Help Group