Female Empowerment: Impact of a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines

Nava Ashraf (), Dean Karlan () and Wesley Yin ()
Additional contact information
Nava Ashraf: Harvard Business School
Wesley Yin: University of Chicago

Working Papers from Economic Growth Center, Yale University

Abstract: Female "empowerment" has increasingly become a policy goal, both as an end to itself and as a means to achieving other development goals. Microfinance in particular has often been argued, but not without controversy, to be a tool for empowering women. Here, using a randomized controlled trial, we examine whether access to an individually-held commitment savings product leads to an increase in female decision-making power within the household. We find positive impacts, particularly for women who have below median decision-making power in the baseline, and we find this leads to a shift towards female-oriented durables goods purchased in the household.

Keywords: Savings; Microfinance; Female empowerment; Household decision making; Commitment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 D63 D91 J16 O12 O16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-mfd
Date: 2006-12
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Related works:
Working Paper: Female Empowerment: Impact of a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines* (2007)
Working Paper: Female Empowerment: Impact of a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines (2007)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:egc:wpaper:949

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