Financial access and women's role in household decisions: Empirical evidence from India's National Rural Livelihoods project

Anjini Kochar, Closepet Nagabhushana, Ritwik Sarkar, Rohan Shah and Geeta Singh

Journal of Development Economics, 2022, vol. 155, issue C

Abstract: Government programs supporting self help groups (SHGs) generally target women on the assumption that doing so enhances women's decision-making. The empirical evidence, however, is mixed. We advance and test one explanation: the loan amounts offered by most SHGs may be too small to impact women. Our analysis is based on SHGs developed under India's National Rural Livelihoods Mission, a program that supported both small loans from internal savings and larger loans through Community Investment Funds (CIFs). Exploiting variation in their phasing and amount, we document a large effect of CIFs on women's decision-making and on intra-household allocations.

Keywords: Women's decision-making; Self help groups; Loan size (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J12 J16 O12 O16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:deveco:v:155:y:2022:i:c:s0304387822000050

DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2022.102821

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