Abstract
Microfinance has been cited as a significant tool for overcoming poverty, lack of employment, and social marginalisation, especially in the Global South. Nevertheless, despite its current popularity and increasing scholarly literature on the matter, complete information about its conceptual history and study directions remain unavailable. This study addresses this knowledge gap by conducting a bibliometric examination of 2,426 peer-reviewed microfinance-related articles obtained from the Scopus database (1996–2025) and tracing the development of microfinance research on poverty alleviation and employment generation topics. Employing a methodological framework that combines PRISMA-based literature selection, Biblioshiny driven visual analytics, and Callon’s centrality-density thematic mapping, this study investigates the temporal, structural, and geographical dimensions of microfinance scholarship. This study tracks intellectual transitions by theme (via their thematic evolution) through coword networks, factor clustering, and country-specific collaboration maps in the literature on microfinance and beyond (access to credit and group lending as the initial theme and digital financial inclusion, gender empowerment, crisis resilience, and sustainability-oriented microfinance as emerging themes).The findings indicate that while core themes such as women’s empowerment and financial inclusion remain pivotal, newer areas such as climate-resilient finance, fintech integration, and microfinance aimed at youth employment are becoming increasingly popular. Thematic fragmentation and geographic inequality in research cooperation were observed in the analysis, with India, Bangladesh, and the United States as the most important contributors to the production of knowledge on a global scale. This study offers a comprehensive overview of the field’s intellectual framework, providing valuable insights for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers.
Keywords: Bibliometric Analysis Microfinance, Employment Generation, Poverty Alleviation, Sustainability, Thematic Evolution.