Tracing the knowledge landscape in rural microfinance: a bibliometric and science mapping analysis

Abstract

In the fight against social and economic issues such as poverty, gender inequality and income disparity worldwide, rural microfinance has emerged as a vital instrument. Particularly in low-income nations, research has increasingly emphasized its importance in empowering women and promoting adaptive measures in addition to fighting poverty. Despite the swift growth of scholarship in this field, a comprehensive mapping of the conceptual framework and performance patterns of rural microfinance research is still lacking. To identify major thematic advancements and worldwide research trends, a comprehensive examination of the growing corpus of literature in this field is necessary. Bibliometric and science mapping techniques (including performance analysis, co-authorship analysis and co-word analysis) have been applied to summarize the results of 1836 open access publications from several databases, including Google Scholar, Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus, that were published between 2005 and 2024. The study examines publication trends, influential authors, journals, countries, collaboration networks and thematic evolution. With performance analysis highlighting the most prolific nations, significant writers, important associations and top journals, the analysis shows a clear increasing trend in rural microfinance research. The findings reveal geographical concentration in certain regions, evolving thematic clusters and emerging topics such as digital finance and gender inclusion. One hundred and seventy-nine author keywords were found using co-word analysis, which is utilized for scientific mapping and highlights key topics in the research area of rural microfinance. This study has its limitation as only open-access papers from Google Scholar, Scopus and WoS are included. Although this method guarantees openness and accessibility, it can leave out important information from subscription or textbook sources, which could limit the scope of the study. Instead of covering the overall microfinance industry, this study distinguishes out for its special focus on rural microfinance as a separate research subject.