Does women’s welfare improve because of the presence of a microfinance company?

What type of microfinance company benefits women’s welfare the most?

What data do I need?

Independent Variable

1. Regions with different kinds of microfinance
2. Regions without microfinance
3. Get data for a period of 10 years?

Dependent Varible

1. Number of deaths of women during disasters
2. NUmber of domestic violence reported
3. Representation in local government
4. Sex Ratio

I need an area.

1. I need regions with different kinds of microfinance.
2. Does dependent variable change with time as access to microfinance increases in an area?

CRISIL (owned by Standard and Poor) Full report - http://indiamicrofinance.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/CRISIL-ratings_india-top-50-mfis.pdf



Focus on one state – Andhra Pradesh

Access to Microfinance in AP - http://ifmr.ac.in/cmf/publications/wp/2010/CMF_Access_to_Finance_in_Andhra_Pradesh_2010.pdf

Criticism of the Access report - http://microfinance-in-india.blogspot.com/2011/01/cmf-study-on-access-to-finance-in.html

For Profit – SKS

JLG, Pvt. Ltd. Ltd (SKSMPL) Andhra Pradesh Company (NBFC),

Link: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&hid=112&sid=1c48f873-0783-47e2-82ed-2c209708be0e%40sessionmgr112

The paper is trying to make the argument that effect of MF on domestic violence is varied. This doesnt sound like a very good argument to make. Everyone knows that variance is there. The point of arguments is to pick a side and convince people about it. I think the author should have worded it differently. He should have said something like there is significant evidence to believe that domestic violence increases because of access to MF or that domestic violence decreases due to MF. If you think about it, even the last paper (goetz) could have been worded like this paper. But Goetz was clever. She highlighted one aspect of the results of her data and explained why it’s important.

“In cities this is due especially to the rapid growth of the garment industry, which now employs about one million women (Reuter, 1996).” – What? Did the author just read a random news article about women being employed in the garment industry and decide to use it in the article?

“Small rural industries such as rice mills also employ women, but in rural areas
targeted credit programmes of governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
are probably the most important catalyst for change in traditional gender roles.” – I dont like this statement either. How can you say that it’s the “most important catalyst for change in traditional gender roles” when there’s a whole area of social science that cropped up dedicated to studying this very question!

2 years of data collection! – Very thorough. Observation + interviews. – This should weed out some errors coming from people’s responses in interviews.

I dont think contraceptive use should be used an an indicator for women’s empowerment always. Yes, in the West reproductive rights have been a huge part of the women’s movement but it just doesnt hold that much significance elsewhere. Women in India atleast can get abortion very easily. I dont know about Bangladesh, though.

While I read this paper, time and again I am forced to think about religion. Can religion play a role in the acceptence of domestic violence as a norm?

I think the author’s tone is maybe a little patronising. Like the women in the study have no power and must be uplifted.

Domestic violence does go down but only when the income levels of women are very high. But that’s kind of obvious, isn’t it?

Supports the previous article about control over credit – “For
example, one woman said that the Grameen women were beaten less than others, except
when they put pressure on their husbands to hand over money for the loan instalments.”

He’s using quotes and anecdotes. How does one woman saying something help establish a pattern? Maybe studies dont always have to establish a pattern. Maybe this study is just trying to give people a feel of what things are like for these women in Bangladesh.

I guess this paper is kind of like presenting the counter-argument to Sanyal’s article. While Sanyal says that SHG provide women with social capital to deal with issues like domestic violence, this paper illiustrates how SHGs can fail at addressing issues like that.

He offers some suggestions about how this problem of domestic violence can be countered but the suggestions are kind of vague.

What I learnt from this paper?

Writing:

This is definitely not the kind of paper I would like to do. I dont really buy the idea of quoting individual women and narrating anecdotes and using them as evidence to support your argument.

I feel like the researchers must have gathered so much good data in 2 years. It should have been put to better use. Also, where are the data charts? They refer to it but dont show them.

Finally, as I mentioned before I dont like the idea of a paper that doesn’t take a stand. What’s the point?

Content:

Domestic violence is a serious issue. The MF factor aside it is alarming how pervasive it is! My personal thought on this issue is that in a culture where violence against women is the norm, unfortunately, we must expect that violence will increase in the face of any attempt at expanding the role of women. But I think in the long-term domestic violence will reduce if women’s access to not just MF but also other resources continues to increase.

For my own research purposes, this article dint really give me any ideas on what I can do. But I definitely learnt about rural Bangladeshi society a little bit and maybe that’s what the author’s goal was. This knowledge will probably act like background info while I read more studies about the effects of MF on the roles of women. It will probably make me more skeptical when some author claims that women in SHG groups are able to use their network and social capital to fight social problems like domestic violence.

Link – http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-0029774522&origin=resultslist&sort=plf-f&src=s&sid=lv16o9YM9PxT31DNCrSEJHf:240&sot=q&sdt=b&sl=50&s=TITLE-ABS-KEY-AUTH(goetz+credit+gender+bangladesh)&relpos=0&relpos=0

From the abstract I can tell that it is the kind of study that Prof was talking about i.e. “credit is supposed to help women but…..”.

Main question of this paper – How much of the credit do women actually control?  I think it’s brilliant that we get to know this within the first few lines of the paper.

“To keep this situation in perspective, however,it is worth remembering that women still receive anextremely small proportion of the cumulative amountof loans which have been disbursed by financial institutionsto rural areas.” – Very interesting. Possible paper topic?

“Because most studies take the household as the unit of study, questions about the impact ofcredit on women in terms of its effects on intrahouseholddecision making, resource allocation, andempowerment are more difficult to ask.” – John Adams makes the same point in his bashing- Yunus paper. It’s a valid point but it’s really not something that can be studied be quantified. Maybe we need Pysch people to study this stuff?

Same old question – What is empowerment?

Are these financial institutions just using poor women as a market for their goods? They do charge very high interest rates. We’ve seen this happen before with colonialism! Inclusion in the economy does not equal to power.

“As the subsequent discussion will illustrate, there are many ambiguities surroundingcontrol over loan use – an apparent loss of control may disguise a negotiated transfer, where the nature ofthe negotiation and transfer, and the rights and privilegesgained in return, may indicate a power achievementfor the woman borrower.” – Things are not what they may always look like in human relations. I like this paper coz if this was an author who only looked at cold hard facts then this possibility would not have occured to her. Social science is hard because you cant just take refuge in numbers and facts.

So women have significant control over decisions relating to family health and dowry but not over productive activities. What a revelation! This is just pushing women deeper into the cycle of being solely and exclusively responsible for taking care of family. Empowerment?

Link – http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=43099300&site=ehost-live

Starting comments – This is from an economic journal. So expect a lot of stats. Just from the abstract the language is more scientific than the previous article.

Introduction

The random quote from Einstein seems unnecessary. He could have gone straight to defining the terms used in the study or overview of current lit in the field.

“Within the South Asian context, women’s empowermentis viewed as a process in which women challenge the existing norms and culture,to effectively improve their well-being.” – I find this definition very vague. I think the author in the previous article did a better job of being more specific in her definitions.

“Most of these studies suffer from bias due to the endogenousnature of the programme participation and unobserved household, individual and areacharacteristics.” – Adams talks about this in his “Microfarce” paper.

Author’s saying that interviewees give answers in qualitative form. It doesnt make a lot of sense to put them into a number.

The definition used for the study - defines women’s empowerment as the process in which women challenge the existing norms and culture of the society in which they live to improve their wellbeing effectively

Data

This study has a bigger sample and a control group too. So this data is more credible than the previous paper?

The auhtor describes all the issues with having “latent variable” i.e. “variables that are not directly observed but are rather inferred” (from Wiki).

Method

I dont understand the estimation methods entirely. If I have to use statistics in my paper maybe I will use the simple regression  models that I know? Or learn new ones to suit my data?

Since I dint entirely understand the equations he used I am unable to comment on it. Maybe he could have used a more suitable one. I dont know.

Argument

Author argues that women who joined SHGs challenged existing social norms which promoted gender inequality more than the women who dint join SHGs. He acknoledges that there is a lot of problem with using latent variables.

What I learnt from this paper?

1. Quantitative studies have the appearance of being more credible. Is this just my prejudice or is this true?
2. If I want to do a quantitative study I need to sharpen my statistical skills.

Link – http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=43540283&site=ehost-live

Introduction

So she is measuring not the economic empowerment, not just the individual empowerment but their social gains as a group and as individuals.

Firstly, what is normative influence and social capital? Social capital is the networks your develop with the community around you and normative influence is how much you are affected by the group. (This is what I found from researching the internet.) What does the author mean by these terms? By “normative influence”she means a) sanction against undesirable practices and b) ability to influence social norms and practices.

Sample size – 400 women belonging to 59 MF groups in rural West Bengal.

OK. She is declaring her results in the introduction -

1. she says she finds that forming women into groups has the unintended result of promoting collective action in 1/3 rd of the groups.
2. these problems had nothing to do with MF and often they dint have anything to do with the members

So economic ties promote social ties. Economic ties are not always corrosive to society as suggested by some classical sociologists.

Women’s Empowerment

She basically gives an overview of rural Indian women’s social networks. She says the reason a woman of this background is unable to organise in response to personal or public problems is because women are largely secluded. They ties they make with neighbours and husband’s family are very weak to turn to in the face of a crisis.

My personal observation is also that people in India, in general, do not turn to any kind of support groups when faced with a crisis.

But MF by contrast is group-based! So women in these groups are nto isolated anymore.

Studies on MF’s social impact on women is very very contrdictory. She talks about some papers that I think I should read –

Link -

Almost immediately, he tries to make the point that all Yunus did was create loan circles.

He seems to be commenting on a recent trend among Peace Prize recipients. A prize that was traditionally given only to people who worked directly in building fraternity among nations and ending wars etc. is now being given to people with a more economics background like Gore and Yunus. He claims that what the Nobel Prize committee said about Yunus was just fatuitous.  haha

Evaluating Microfin Programs – He points out the problems here

1. They usually advertise with the story of some women who has done better than others. – But serious evaluators like academicians and the Nobel Prize committee are not looking just at the website or some promotional material for micro-fin companies.
2. Micro-fin wants to address too many things.
3. Selection bias - people who would chose to borrow from a scheme like this have different characteristics than general population.

UNDP’s programmes are poorly rated. – UNDP funds grameen bank?

Dufflos Pakistan study states that MF in Pakistan is mostly charity. It is not self-sustaining.

What I really liked about this section is that he’s very careful to cite all the scathing remarks he makes.

Household Economy

I think he makes a really good point about taking the household economy and politics into account when you study the impact of MF on poverty or women’s empowerment. I definitely think that this is a good thing to keep in mind for my own thesis. This means being more rigorous. using not just economics and political science studies but also anthropology and sociology.

Economic anthropology is complex and incomplete field.

Taking a loan doesnt mean anything. It doesnt mean “wealth creation”. It could just be acquiring something at the cost of something else. It could just be used tofinance a wedding.

Deposit options and insurance may be more useful than micro-fin. This is something I am coming across again and again. Must explore this!

Let’s not forget that before MF became the big buzzword there were  always co-ops, farmer dev banks, govt loans! – So true.

MF loans are have high interest rates too.

MF is just a fad, he says.

Conclusion

Both family centric and macroeconomic benefits (like poverty reduction) are highly exaggerated. MF is highly unorganised so it makes it very difficult to account for it.

No reliable evidence for MF achieving its stated goals.

It’s only a fad because –

1. Uplifting women sounds cool
2. Poverty reduction sounds cool
3. Weekly meetings with borrowers sounds like felt needs are being responded to

He ends by saying that MF doesnt contribute anything to the economy. It just helps money shift hands (like a traditional banker?).

What I learnt from this paper?

1. Microfinance is not proven to be the an answer to macroeconomic issues like poverty reduction. Nor has it been proven to help women.
2. Household economy and how it interacts with the availability of micro-credit – Question to look into.
3. Services other than credit like deposit and isurance facilities might be more useful.
4. The role of other kinds of credit facilities available to the poor like co-ops etc. – Another question.
5. A coherent paper makes for easy reading.

Link-http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=52465025&site=ehost-live

What is empowerment?

Starting with a definition. Good idea. Clarifies to people what you mean when you mean in your paper when you use certain terms.

But after line 1, everything in the introduction seems redundant unless all that is somehow useful in understanding the paper. But I wouldn’t know that until I have finished reading the paper.

There’s one last line in the intro that talks about what it means to empower women. I feel like there should have been more focus on this since that is what this paper is about, atleast that’s what the title suggests.

What is the connection between women and micro-fin? How can micro-fin help women?

“In India, the trickle down effects of macroeconomic

policies have failed to resolve the problem of gender

inequality.” – Makes a controversial statement without citing!

“Evidence shows that groups of women are better

customers than men, the better managers of resources.” – What evidence?

General info and history on micro-fin

Important distinction to keep in mind for future  – “while

micro credit refers to purveyance of loans in small quantities,

the term microfinance has a broader meaning covering in its

ambit other financial services like saving, insurance etc.”

micro-fin groups work on joint liability (one person defaults then each person can be held individually responsible for the sole amount that hasn’t been repaid by the one person) OR co-obligation (what does this mean??- not able to find a definition online)

SHG – predominant model in India, group functions as intermediary between fin institution and borrower

Grameen model – borrower is given loan based on group’s assurance, the group is jointly liable/co-obligated

SEWA – Self-employed women’s association (good org to remember)

History of micro-fin to women – Remember that micro-fin to women has a dual purpose right from the beginning. It’s financial inclusion + gender equality.

The shift in focus to women was organic. When micro-fin trend started picking up in 80s and 90s organisations realised that women were repaying better.  And women’s empowerment was used as a good moral justification???

Feminist Empowerment Paradigm

“The feminist empowerment paradigm did not

originate as a Northern imposition, but is firmly rooted in the

development of some of the earliest micro-finance

programmes in the South, including SEWA in India.” –Interesting sentence. What is the author trying to justify?

Microfin is supposed to remove bottlenecks for women like access to credible information, markets, credit.

Poverty Alleviation

Poverty alleviation here is defined in broader

terms than market incomes to encompass increasing

capacities and choices and decreasing the vulnerability of

poor people. – Interesting. So poverty alleviation  is not crossing a certain level of income but it is expanding your choices?

But what are the underlying principles of all these “paradigms”? Author just gives a vague intro to each of these “paradigms” and moves on.

Financial Sustainability Paradigm

“The ultimate aim is large programmes which are

profitable and fully self-supporting in competition with other

private sector banking institutions and able to raise funds

from international financial markets rather than relying op

funds from development agencies.” – I like this line because it is specific. Author doesn’t cite or provide evidence for where he gets this from but it is not vague like some other lines. This might be an interesting question to undertake. Need to read more papers about this stuff. Can micro-credit institutions attain financial sustainability.

Target is not poor but bankable poor!

What’s the assumption behind all this women’s empowerment stuff? – It is assumed that increasing women’s access to

micro-finance services will in itself lead to individual

economic empowerment through enabling women’s decisions

about savings and credit use, enabling women to set up

micro-enterprise, increasing incomes under their control. It is

then assumed that this increased economic empowerment will

lead to increased well-being of women and also to social and

political empowerment.

Is he arriving at his argument finally?  -

Although women’s empowerment may be a

stated aim in the rhetoric of official gender policy and

program promotion, in practice it becomes subsumed in and

marginalized by concerns of financial sustainability and/oMicro fmance is emerging as a powerful instrument

for poverty alleviation in the new economy.r

poverty alleviation.

So it works for poverty alleviation but not necessarily for women’s empowerment? – Micro fmance is emerging as a powerful instrument

for poverty alleviation in the new economy.

Development practitioners in India and developing countries often argue that, the

exaggerated focus on micro finance as a solution for the poor

has led to neglect by the state and public institutions in

addressing employnient and livelihood needs of the poor. – OK. So is this his argument. He seems to be touching down a million things and not exploring any one of them. Is the point of his paper just to give a general intro to micro-fin in India and list the usual debates about it?

In the “Problems and Challenges” and “ Shortcomings” sections the author lists a bunch of issues that prevent women from benefitting from micro-credit. If I wanted to do a more “culture and gender type study I could focus on any one of these like how does lack of education prevent women from taking advantage of micro-credit. Argument would be like micro-credit availability by itself is not enough, x, y, z etc are also needed.

There are signs, particularly in some urban

markets like Harare and Lusaka that the rapid expansion of

micro-finance programmes may be contributing to market

saturation in ‘female’ activities and hence declining profits. – So like too many women opening beauty salons so everyone’ profits are going down? This just shows that poor (and uneducated) women have a very narrow skill set.

Interesting argument because this is a typical argument that was used early on in India when women started working. If women worked who will take care of children, elderly and disabled. – Without

substitute care for small children, the elderly and disabled and

provision of services to reduce domestic work many

programmes reported adverse effects of women’s outside

work on children and the elderly..Daughters in particular may

be withdrawn from school to assist their mothers.

Small increases in access to income and influence

may therefore be at the cost of heavier work loads, increased

stress and women’s health.- Definitely something to be explored.

Micro-finance has also been strategically used by

some NGOs as an entry point for wider social and political

mobilization of women around gender issues. – This is the first time I am hearing of this. This is definitely interesting.

Conclusion – OK. So is he concluding that multipurpose loans are the solution?

In situations of chronic poverty it is more important to

provide saving services than to offer credit. – Just pulling stuff out of thin air in the conclusion!

I think he concluded that comprehensive and coherent gender policy is required to make micro-credit an instrument of empowerment.

What I get from this paper?

1. Explore the missing link between microfinance and women’s empowerment?
2. Financial sustainability of microfinance – another possible topic for thesis
3. Be specific.
4. Cite!
5. Have an argument and all parts of the paper must be coherent and build towards your argument.