Participation in Microcredit Programs and Women Empowerment*

 
7.1 Program Participation and Its Effects on Women’s Position
The positive effect of program participation on household social well-being should ideally translate into reductions in intra-household and gender inequalities, leading to improvements in women’s position. The objective of this chapter is to assess the effect of program participation on women’s position, both at the social or community level and within the household. Women’s position will be indicated by both process and outcome variables.

Women’s Social Position

 Women’s social position in the community will be indicated by the outcomes employment for income earning and contraceptive use for birth control, and the process variable ‘extent of mobility outside the home’. All of these variables reflect the degree to which women are able to confront or deal with social norms that depress women’s social status in the community and generally cause women to be in a subordinate position to men.

Employment
 
The relative absence of employment opportunities for women and the fact that women have much lower labour force participation rates than men arises both from the lack of demand for female labour and from the constraints on female labour supply. Both these phenomena have strong social underpinnings that reflect women’s inferior position in the community relative to men. Therefore, the actual magnitude of women’s employment or paid work, which emerges from the interplay of the demand and supply forces operating in the community, will provide an assessment of their existing position in that community.

The magnitude of female employment is indicated by the percent of households having employed female family members and by the number of days of female employment available per household.

These are shown for 1998 and 2000 in Table 7.1, including change over time in the number of days of employment. The small percent of households with employed female members and the small number of days of employment in 1998 confirm that women have very limited opportunities for employment and face strong supply barriers as well. Self-employment is slightly more common than wage employment and generate more days of employment for all categories of households. Participant households in general are more likely to have female self-employment compared to non-participant households, and continuous participant households are more likely to have female wage employment than either occasional participant households or non-participant households. This same pattern holds with respect to days of employment. Increase in the magnitude of female employment at the aggregate group level is quite small and only observed for continuous participant households, while the mean number of employed days at the group level actually declined.  

Table 7.1
 
Percentage of Households in Which Women are Self or Wage Employed, Number of Days of Employment and Change Between 1998 and 2000 According to Nature of Participation  

Nature of Participation   Household with female members employed (%HH) Number of days of female employment per year (Mean) Households with increase in days of female employment (%HH)
Self employed Wage employed Self employed Wage employed Self employed Wage employed
1998 2000 1998 2000 1998 2000 1998 2000
ContinuousParticipant   14.0 15.0 11.0 8.6 39 37 25 17 8.4 5.8
N 1066   1066   1066   1066   1066 1066
SD .35 .35 .31 .28 111 106 104 73 .28 .23
Occasional Participant   13.0 12.0 7.9 7.7 35 32 20 15 7.3 5.5
N 952   952   952   952   952 952
SD .34 .32 .27 .27 102 101 84 71 .26 .23
NeverParticipant   5.4 5.4 7.1 6.8 14 13 18 13 3.8 4.2
N 886   886   886   886   886 886
SD .23 .23 .26 .25 74 67 97 58 .19 .20


However, some individual households did experience increase in the days of female employment between 1998 and 2000, although this is only observed for a small percent of households in all household groups. Actual increase in days of employment is relatively more likely among participant households compared to non-participant households. Hence, participation in a micro-credit program increases the days of female employment for a small proportion of participant households independently of the increase experienced by all households, even though there is a decline in the average number of employed days for this group as a whole. This means that in those households where female family members are employed participation has a positive effect on the number of employed days. But the effect of participation on the level of female employment is not evident.
Mobility

The restriction imposed upon women’s mobility outside the home and particularly in the male dominated public space is a reflection of women’s inferior position relative to men. Hence, the actual extent of women’s mobility outside the home is indicative of their relative position in that community. Generally, the restriction on women’s mobility is positively related to the degree of male dominance of the public space. Therefore, the extent of mobility will be mapped with respect to visits in the last year to public places with varying degrees of male dominance, from the most male dominated spaces of the thana headquarters and the bank, followed by the moderately male dominated space of the health centre, to the least male dominated space of parent’s home. Another form of restriction on women’s mobility is through the norm that women have to be accompanied on visits outside the home. Generally, the most socially acceptable form of visit outside the home is to be accompanied by adult male relatives, followed by adult female relatives, followed by minor children or alone.
  
The nature of women’s mobility outside the home in 1998 and the change in mobility between 1998 and 2000 is shown in Table 7.2. As expected, in 1998 women were least likely to have visited the most male dominated public space of the thana head quarters or the bank, somewhat more likely to have visited the health centre and extremely likely to have visited their parent’s home during the 12 months prior to the interview. Moreover, the extent of women’s mobility was the most restricted in continuous participant households compared to women in either occasional participant households or non-participant households. By 2000, however, there has been a tremendous increase in the extent of women’s mobility in all household groups, especially with respect to visits to the most male dominated public space, i.e. the thana head quarters or the bank. The increase in the extent of mobility has been much larger in the case of women in participant households compared to women in non-participant households. In other words, women’s access to the male dominated public space has increased generally for all categories of households, but over and above that for participant households. Hence, participation has a large positive effect in expanding women’s sphere of movement outside the home leading to an improvement in their position in the community.

Table 7.2
Percentage of Households in which Women Visited Various Places Outside the Homestead and Change between 1998 and 2000 According to Nature of Participation

Continuous

Participant
%HH 7.4 23.9
N 782 782
SD .26 .43

Occasional

Participant
%HH 9.1 24.9
N 614 614
SD .29 .43

Never

Participant
%HH 8.6 24.0
N 476 476
SD .28 .43

Contraceptive Use

Childbearing is seen as an important social role for women, which lends weight to a woman’s status within the family and in the community. Traditionally, the value of a woman to her family was influenced by the timing and number of her births, especially sons. During the last two decades, however, the small family norm has gained widespread credibility and contraceptive use for birth control has become widely acceptable as legitimate behaviour. The regulation of fertility, both limiting the total number of births and spacing them, reduces the burden of childbearing for women. Hence, the use of contraceptives for birth control enhances individual women’s welfare and improves the overall position of women in the society. The aggregate level of contraceptive use is, therefore, an indication of women’s position in that community. Table 7.3 shows the magnitude of contraceptive use by currently married couples (with wives under 50 years of age) in 1998 and in 2000 and the change over time in terms of the percent of non-using households becoming users.

Table 7.3
Percentage of Households in which Currently Married Couples (with Wives Under50 Years of Age) Use Contraceptives and Change between 1998 and 2000 According to Nature of Participation

Nature of

Participation

 

Households1 in which couples were using contraceptives in 1998

Households1 in which couples were using contraceptives in 2000

Households1 in which couples were non-users in 1998 but users in 2000

All methods

Male2 methods

All methods

Male2 methods

All methods

Male2 methods

Continuous

Participant

%HH

52

8

75

23

28

15

N

955

496

785

590

760

364

SD

.50

.27

.43

.42

.45

.36

Occasional

Participant

%HH

50

10

75

18

30

12

N

838

415

684

513

660

303

SD

.50

.30

.43

.39

.46

.32

Never

Participant

%HH

42

8

68

17

31

10

N

737

308

592

399

564

215

SD

.49

.27

.47

.37

.46

.30

Note: 1 = Includes only households having a currently married woman under 50 years of age

          2 = Only among households in which women used contraceptives

The average level of contraceptive use has been consistently higher for participating households compared to non-participating households. There has been significant increase in the level of use between 1998 and 2000 for all household groups. The change over time at the household level shows that the increase in contraceptive use (in terms of new contraceptors) was similar in all household groups, perhaps even slightly greater among non-participating households. Thus, although participation could initially have had a positive effect on the use of contraceptives leading to the large difference in average use levels between participant and non-participant households, the subsequent increase in use does not seem to be affected by participation in a micro-credit program

7.2 Women’s Intra-household Position
Another aspect of women’s empowerment is the relative position of women within the household. Although women’s position in the community may be improving, the intra-household situation may be very different. There are contrary views about the impact of participation in micro-credit programs on women’s empowerment and intra-household gender relationships. The majority of research findings support the view that participation has a positive impact on women’s relative position within the household; another set of findings assert that participation reinforces patriarchal norms of behaviour leading to greater inequality in household gender relationships. The effect of micro-credit progrmme participation on women’s position in the household can be assessed by examining the extent to which participation leads to a reduction in gender inequality in household processes. The relative position of women in household relationships is indicated by process indicators like women’s relative role in household processes like access to and control over household income and fertility regulation, and by women’s perceptions about their status in the family, relationship with husband and self esteem. Women’s intra-household position will be indicated by process variables reflecting intra-household processes, which are women’s access to household income from different sources and women’s participation in household decision-making, and the outcome variable use of male methods of contraception for birth control. These variables reflect the degree of equality of gender relationships in the household.
Household Income Control
The process of gaining control over household income may be seen as securing access to income and having a say in how that income is allocated. The way in which women’s access to household income translates into income control is by raising the likelihood of women influencing how that income is spent, or in other words, participating actively in household expenditure decision making. In this paper access to income is determined by who keeps the income and control over income is determined by who has a say in household expenditure decisions. Traditionally, women’s access to household income has been greatest with respect to small incomes that women earn on their own, although sometimes women do not have access even to their own incomes, while women’s access to larger incomes from male production has been relatively less. It is not surprising, therefore, that rural women’s role in household expenditure decision-making is small with respect to decisions regarding production and investment outside the home, i.e. ‘male’ decisions, and relatively greater with respect to decisions regarding production and consumption inside the home, i.e. ‘female’ decisions. Therefore, an increase in women’s access to income from male production sources is likely to enhance their active participation in non-traditional or ‘male’ household decisions.

Household income  was disaggregated by source into income from the sale of crops, income from sale of livestock and livestock products and income from the sale of poultry and eggs, roughly corresponding to ‘male’, ‘common’ and ‘female’ incomes respectively. The indicator of access to income from any source was ‘who kept income from that source’, and was categorised as ‘both’ when income was shared equally by the head and spouse, as ‘men’ when the male head and/or other male family members kept more than 50 per cent, and as ‘women’ when the head’s wife or the female head and/or other female family members kept more than one half of the income. Women were said to have access to income from any source if the income was kept either by both spouses or by women alone.

The percent of households in which women had access to household incomes from different sources in 1998, and the percent of household experiencing increase in women’s access between 1998 and 2000 are shown in Table 7.4. In 1998 women’s access to household income was found to follow the expected pattern, with access being most common for income from women’s own activities, i.e. poultry rearing, followed by income from livestock and least common for income from male activities, i.e. crop production. This pattern was observed in all household groups, and the relative importance of women’s access to different types of income was similar in all three household groups. The proportion of household in which women had access to crop income was surprisingly large, ranging from 50-58 percent of sample households. A household was said to experience increase in women’s access to income if the indicator ‘who kept the income’ changed from ‘men’ to either ‘women’ or ‘both’, or from ‘both’ to ‘women’.

Table 7.4
 Percentage of Households in which Women have Access to Household Income from Different Sources and Change between 1998 and 2000 According to Nature of Participation

Nature ofParticipation   Households in which women have access to income in 1998 from Households in which women’s access to income increased
Crop sale Poultry sale Livestock sale Crop sale Poultry sale Livestock sale
ContinuousParticipant %HH 50 93 62 21.2 11.4 10.4
N 410 614 149 250 430 48
SD .50 .26 .49 .41 .32 .31
OccasionalParticipant %HH 54 93 54 20.3 12.2 8.8
N 411 502 112 256 352 34
SD .50 .26 .50 .40 .33 .29
NeverParticipant %HH 58 91 60 20.8 12.7 25
N 377 327 86 259 221 24
SD .49 .29 .49 .41 .33 .44

The likelihood of increase in women’s access to crop income and poultry income was quite similar in all household groups. The increase was experienced by about one fifth of households for crop income and by about 11-12 percent of households for poultry income. In the case of livestock income non-participating households were significantly more likely to experience increase in women’s access to income compared to participating households generally. However, among participating households continuous participant households were slightly more likely to experience increase in women’s access to livestock income compared to occasional participant households. Hence, although women’s access to household income from some sources, notably crop income, showed remarkable increase the independent effect of participation per se on women’s access to household income is not evident. In other words, program participation does not appear to have an independent effect in reducing gender inequality in access to household income.
The decision-making process was disaggregated according to type of decision. These were expenditure decisions on crop production, children’s schooling, health care, food consumption and poultry rearing. It may be noted that these decisions are located either in the domains of ‘male’ decisions (crop production), ‘female’ decisions (poultry rearing), or in the ‘common’ domain (children’s schooling, health care and food consumption). The indicator of the decision making process was “who was the primary decision maker’. In each case the decision-maker was categorised as ‘men’ when the male head and/or male family members was the primary decision-maker, as ‘both’ when the decision was made jointly by the male head and spouse, and as ‘women’ when the primary decision-maker was the head’s wife or female head and/or other female family members. Women were said to have an active role in decision making if the decision maker was either ‘both’ or ‘women’. Women’s participation in decision making was said to increase if the primary decision maker changed from ‘men’ to ‘both’ or ‘women’, and from ‘women’ to ‘both’. The proportion of households in which women actively participated in expenditure decisions in 1998 and the proportion experiencing increase in women’s participation in decision making between 1998 and 2000 are shown in Table 7.5.

The participation of women in household expenditure decisions conformed to the expected pattern of male and female domains of decision-making. In 1998 the relative frequency of women’s active participation was greatest in the case of ‘female’ decisions, i.e. poultry rearing, followed by ‘common’ decisions, i.e. food expenditure, schooling and health care, and least in the case of ‘male’ decisions, i.e. crop production. This general pattern was seen in all household groups, and differences by household group were negligible with some exceptions. In the case of poultry rearing, schooling and health care expenditures women’s active role was slightly more common in participant compared to non-participant households. It may be noted that the pattern of women’s participation in household decision-making and women’s access to household income could both be categorised into the broad domains of ‘male’, ‘female’ and the overlapping or ‘common’domain.

Table 7.5
Percentage of Households in which Women Participate in Household Expenditure Decision Making and Change between 1998 and 2000 According to Nature of Participation

Nature of Participation

    

Households in which women participated in expenditure decisions in 1998 on