Student ID: 1001594Module Title: Gender and Development (PO353)Word Count: 2,999

Critically evaluate whether microfinance

empowers or increases the burden upon

women living in the developing world.

Discuss with reference to at least two

case studies.

Through a consideration of the impact of microfinance in bothBangladesh and India, this essay will argue that, when used correctly,microfinance does significantly contribute to the empowerment ofwomen living in the developing world. This will be done through ananalysis of the economic effects of loans and savings, the politicaldimension to microfinance in terms of the neo-liberal agenda and thepublic/private divide and the social consequences of microfinance inregards to the ‘solidarity circles’, relations within the household, the‘double burden’ and self-empowerment. The final section of the essaywill argue that with greater regulation and funding of themicrofinance industry and the use of other development tools, themost important being education, microfinance will continue toempower women living in the developing world.

The growth of the modern microfinance movement has been

extraordinary. Since the formation of the Grameen Bank

in Bangladesh in 1983, microfinance has extended

rapidly and now serves an estimated one hundred and

sixty million people across the developing world.1 With

women forming eighty-four per cent of these

microfinance clients, the phenomenon has also been

widely linked to the empowerment of women.2 At a basic

level, microfinance is the supply of loans, savings and1 ‘Kiva: About Microfinance’ <http://www.kiva.org/about/microfinance> (Accessed 27April 2013).

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other financial services such as insurance and

remittances to the poor.3 This essay will focus on the

provision of loans and saving facilities, using case

studies from Bangladesh and India. Whilst Bangladesh is

widely regarded as the ‘home of microfinance,’4 India serves

as an interesting contrast because there has been a

growing commercialisation of the microfinance industry

in recent years. Through an evaluation of the economic,

political and social aspects of microfinance, this

essay will conclude that, when used correctly,

microfinance can substantially empower women living

across the developing world.

Understanding the Term ‘Empowerment’

In recent years, the term empowerment has evolved into

a concept that is ‘comfortable and unquestionable,’5 and, as

Milford Bateman suggests, is ‘an emotionally loaded concept that

everyone simply must be in favour of.’6 The inclusion of ‘the

empowerment of women’ as one of the Millennium

Development Goals has further served to entrench the

legitimacy of the term. A dictionary definition,

suggests that empowerment occurs by ‘giving power or authority

2 Supriya Garikipati, ‘Microcredit and Women’s Empowerment: Understanding the‘Impact Paradox’ with Particular Reference to South India’, in Slyvia Chant (eds),The International Handbook of Gender and Poverty (Great Britain, 2010), pp. 599. 3 ‘Kiva: About Microfinance’ <http://www.kiva.org/about/microfinance> (Accessed 27April 2013). 4 Milford Bateman and Ha-Joon Chang, ‘The Microfinance Illusion’, < http://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/faculty/chang/pubs/Microfinance.pdf > (Accessed 27 April 2013), p. 11.5 Jane Parpart, Shirin Rai, and Kathleen Staudt, Rethinking Empowerment: Gender andDevelopment in a Global/Local World’ (London, 2002), p.36 Milford Bateman, Why Doesn’t Microfinance Work? The Destructive Rise of Local Neoliberalism (NewYork, 2010), p. 31.

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to someone.’7 Power is a concept which is certainly multi-

faceted in nature and therefore the transfer of power

is best understood as a process rather than a specific

end point.8 An adequate understanding of empowerment

must also consider the wider gender relations in which

a society operates and there must be an acknowledgement

that women are not a homogenous group but rather vary

greatly according to divisions of race, age, caste,

class, religion and sexuality.9

Nonetheless, it is certainly possible to consider areas

in which empowerment can occur. Naila Kabeer’s study of

Bangladesh argued that empowerment composed of:

mobility, ability to make purchases, economic security,

involvement in decision making, freedom from family

domination, political awareness and participation in

public protests and campaigns.10 While Kabeer’s study is

of significant value, I would argue that it misses a

crucial dimension of empowerment being self-

confidence.11 This essay will thus modify the definition

7 ‘Empowerment’ < http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/empowerment?s=t >(Accessed 27 April 2013).8 Susan Johnson, ‘Gender Impact Assessment in Microfinance and Microenterprise: Whyand How?’ Development in Practice, 1 (2000), pp. 228. For further information on thedifferent dimensions of power see: Steven Lukes, Power: A Radical View (Second Edition:New York, 2005). 9 Parpart, Rai, and Staudt, Rethinking Empowerment, pp. 4; Neera Burra, ‘Women andMicrocredit: Some Challenges’ <http://www.bb.undp.org/uploads/file/pdfs/poverty/Library/MED%20Library/Women%20and%20microcredit.pdf > (Accessed 27 April 2013). 10 Naila Kabeer, ‘Can buy me love?’ Re-evaluating the empowerment potential of loansto women in rural Bangladesh,’ < http://www.ids.ac.uk/files/Dp363.pdf> (Accessed 27April 2013), p. 9.11 Anil Kumar and P.M Honnakeri, ‘Impacts of Microfinance on Poverty Alleviation andthe Empowerment of Women with Special References to Rural Women Empowerment andEntrepreneurship Development in India’, International Journal of Research in Commerce andManagement, 4 (2012), pp. 53.

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of empowerment to include: economic independence, a

participation in the public sphere, freedom to overcome

patriarchal relations within the household and

community and finally the development of self-

confidence.

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Economic Empowerment

The Potential of Microcredit

Microcredit, or the provision of small loans, forms one

element of the broader microfinance system. The purpose

of microcredit is simply to provide the poor with a

small source of capital, which can be used to develop a

business.

The microcredit system has certainly been extremely

popular and there have been countless success stories of

women, using the loans, to develop their businesses into

highly profitable enterprises.12 However, as Microfinance

Institutions (MFIs) have become increasingly

commercialised, research has shown that less attention

is being given to the type of the clients being chosen

to receive the loans.13 This has meant, as studies in

India during 2010 suggest, that actually only between

one-fifth and one-third of the loans are being used for

income-generating activity.14 Instead, the majority of

the loans are being used for consumer purposes including

buying food and paying school fees.15 While self-

employment is often promoted by many MFIs as the best

way of escaping poverty, many do not give consideration

to the fact that many of the women selected to receive12 ‘Kiva: Entrepreneurial Support’<http://www.kiva.org/about/socialperformance/entrepreneurial> (Accessed 27 April2013). 13 Siraj Mazhar, ‘Do Microfinance Programs Benefit Women in Developing Countries?’Advancing Women in Leadership, 2012, pp. 18. 14 Bateman, Why Doesn’t Microfinance Work?, pp. 29. 15 Bateman, Why Doesn’t Microfinance Work?, pp. 29.

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the loans, do not have the skills necessary. As one

field worker poignantly commented, ‘women don’t know what to

do with this money, they cannot understand how to use it.’16 It is clear

that while loans have a huge amount of potential to

progress women who have an adequate understanding and

motivation for business, loans cannot succeed where the

MFIs providing them are not considering the nature of

their female clients.

India and Bangladesh are also countries that are deeply

affected by ingrained gender stereotypes. Financial

control within the household is therefore often seen as

firmly within the male domain. In practice, this has

meant that many loans provided to women by MFIs are

actually used by male members of the family, with women

still bearing the liability for its eventual repayment.

A study conducted in Bangladesh found that ‘about sixty-three

per cent of loan cases fall into the three categories of partial, very limited, or

no control; indicating a fairly significant loss of direct control over credit.’17

The study also found that women were more likely to

retain control over the loan given when they were

widowed, separated or divorced or where they invested in

traditional women’s work.18 Such information suggests

that while loans on their own cannot bring about

empowerment for women, if they are used in conjunction

16 Juliet Hunt and Nalini Kasynathan, ‘Pathways to Empowerment? Reflections onMicrofinance and Transformation in Gender Relations in South Asia’, Gender andDevelopment, 1 (2001), pp. 44. 17 Anne Goetz and Rina Gupta, ‘Who takes the Credit? Gender, Power and Control overLoan Use in Rural Credit Programmes in Bangladesh’, World Development, 1 (1996), pp.49. 18 Goetz and Gupta, ‘Who takes the Credit?’, p. 50.

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with other wider development tools such as education,

the current gendered divisions in society certainly

begin to be challenged.

The Power of Savings

The savings element of microfinance is less widely

recognised than the provision of loans, yet arguably,

most directly contributes to women’s economic

empowerment. It is estimated that currently a third of

the world’s population lacks access to a basic savings

account.19 The ability of MFIs to alter this can have

dramatic results for women’s empowerment. It is first

important to consider that the poor live with large

amounts of risk. In Bangladesh, even in ‘normal’ years

without floods or droughts, agricultural wages can be up

to eighteen percent above or below their average

levels.20 Poor women are the most likely to face the

brunt of any instability. With savings, women can use

the little money they have saved, to militate against

this risk and minimise the negative effects it might

otherwise have.

Savings can also enable women to work towards future

goals and ambitions and perhaps also take advantage of

unforeseen investment opportunities.21 While microcredit

19 ‘Grameen Foundation Microsavings Initiative: Why Microsavings?’<http://www.grameenfoundation.org/what-we-do/financial-services/microsavings>( Accessed 27 April 2013). 20 Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight GlobalPoverty, pp. 136. 21 Rebecca Vonderlack and Mark Schreiner, ‘Women, Microfinance, and Savings: Lessonsand Proposals’, Development in Practice, 5 (2002), pp. 603.

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can perform a similar role, it is clear that borrowing

is riskier than saving and ‘the very poor are much more likely to

be frightened at the thought of what might go wrong, than respond

excitedly to what may go right.’22 Finally, independent savings

act as a crucial source of power for women in resisting

patriarchy. In Bangladesh, ‘fourty-two percent of women reported

that while they do have their own independent savings (mostly informal)…

husbands were aware of these savings ninety-one percent of the time…with

eighty-five per cent saying that they were not able to autonomously utilize

them.’23 In contrast, a formal savings account that was

independent from the household would allow women to

exert more control. Browning and Chiappori, have

conducted research which suggests that bargaining power

is ‘driven by the ability of women to credibly threaten to leave the

household.’24 Formal savings could provide women with this

crucial bargaining power as they are backed by an

independent source of economic power.

Political Empowerment

Microfinance as ‘Localised Neo-Liberalism’

In order to place this understanding of microcredit and

microsavings in its wider political context, it is

necessary to understand the central components of neo-

liberalism, which has been referred to as the ‘reigning22 Vonderlack and Schreiner, ‘Women, Microfinance, and Savings’, Development in Practice, 5(2002), p. 603; Thomas Dichter and Malcolm Harper, What’s Wrong with Microfinance? (UnitedKingdom, 2007), p. 52. 23 Mark Pitt, Shaidhur Khandker and Jennifer Cartwright, ‘Empowering Women withMicrofinance: Evidence from Bangladesh’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, 4 (2006),pp. 797. 24 Beatriz Armendariz and Jonathan Morduch, The Economics of Microfinance (United States ofAmerica, 2010), p. 221.

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ideology of our time.’25 Advocates of neo-liberalism encourage

economic liberalisation, free trade, privatization and

deregulation and a limited role for the state, which was

reflected in the Structural Adjustment Policies of the

1980s and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers of the

late 1990s.26 The stress placed by MFIs on ‘individual

entrepreneurship, self-help and financial responsibility’ were, and

continue to be, very much in line with these ideals.27

One of the conditions for women’s empowerment, as

outlined at the start of this essay, was economic

independence. Neo-liberalism puts a strong emphasis on

encouraging women to become independent economic actors

and is in this sense beneficial. Yet, it also encourages

limited state intervention and regulation which has

meant that, in practice, many MFIs have been allowed to

use ‘Wall Street Style tactics…to hoodwink and abuse their poor clients’ in

an endless search for profits.28 Limited state

intervention also means microfinance is often used at

the expense of other state led development programmes.29

Microfinance should be seen as a ‘component but not a substitute

for a coherent agenda for poverty elimination.’30 Current neo-liberal

development methods thus need to be adapted, with

25 Milford Bateman and Ha-Joon Chang, Ha-Joon, ‘The Microfinance Illusion’, <http://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/faculty/chang/pubs/Microfinance.pdf > (Accessed 27 April2013).26 Anthony Payne and Nicola Phillips, Development (Cambridge, 2010), p. 87. 27 Bateman, Why Doesn’t Microfinance Work?, pp. 26, 204. 28 Bateman, Why Doesn’t Microfinance Work?, pp. 14. 29 Linda Mayoux, ‘Women’s Empowerment and Micro-Finance Programmes: Strategies forIncreasing Impact’, Development in Practice, 2 (1998), pp. 235.

30 Janet Momsen, Gender and Development (New York, 2004), p. 20.

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regulation and greater intervention, to ensure that

women continue to be economically empowered.

Challenging the Public/Private Divide

Just as neo-liberalism defines the international context

in which microfinance operates, the political context at

a national and local level must also be considered. The

notion of the ‘public/private’ divide has particular

relevance in Bangladesh and India because of the

widespread cultural practice of purdah (meaning screen or

veil). In societies where purdah is practiced, women are

secluded from the public sphere and remain constrained

to the confines of their reproductive and care-giving

role in the private sphere.31 MFIs can play a vital role

in the breaking down of this political divide, by giving

women an economic role to play, which involves

participating in activities outside of the private

sphere. Such actions would, if used in conjunction with

education, allow a gradual breakdown of the

public/private divide, especially if male members of

society serve to gain economically from the process.

In discussing the impact of purdah, it is interesting to

consider Muhammad Yunus’s experiences in setting up

Grameen Bank. Yunus argues, that while having female

bank workers was crucial to the success of the

microfinance program, deeply entrenched cultural beliefs

meant that it was difficult to approach women about

31 Jude Fernando, Microfinance: Perils and Prospects (New York, 2005), p. 183.

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employment. In addition, family pressures made it

extremely hard for women to choose to enter the public

sphere by joining a MFI.32 With the perseverance and

dedication of individuals committed to empowerment, MFIs

certainly can encourage and legitimise women’s ability

to enter the public sphere, by making them of enough

economic value to their families. This will further

strengthen the microfinance movement by enabling more

women to work in, and therefore shape, the MFIs that are

significantly affecting their lives.

32 Muhammad Yunus, Banker to the Poor (Great Britain, 1998), p. 99.

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Social Empowerment

‘Solidarity Circles’ and the Development of Social Capital

The majority of microcredit supplied in the developing

world relies on group-based lending structures to ensure

repayment. Such a model provides women access to credit

on the basis of social collateral obtained through

membership in borrower groups, often known as

‘solidarity circles.’33 These solidarity circles are

crucial for the development of ‘social capital,’ which

Robert Putnam defines as ‘the features of social organisations, such

as networks, norms, and trust that facilitate action and co-operation for

mutual benefit.’34 In the long term, the development of social

capital can lay the ‘building blocks’35, which will lead to

the development of political democracy and economic

progress in a society.36

Having a support group outside of the family can also do

substantial things for the empowerment of women. Studies

have suggested that women involved in microfinance

programmes found the group dynamic to be the most useful

element of the program as it provided strength and a

‘feeling that they could now take action.’37 Evidence from Calcutta

33 K.N. Rankin, ‘Social Capital, Microfinance and the Politics of Development’, FeministEconomics, 1 (2002), pp. 11. 34 Vandana Desai and Robert Potter, The Companion to Development Studies (Great Britain,2008), p. 140. 35 Zohir Sajjad and Matin Imran, ‘Wider Impacts of Microfinance Institutions: Issuesand Concepts’, Journal of International Development, 3 (2004), pp. 314. 36 Rankin, ‘Social Capital, Microfinance and the Politics of Development’, p. 2. 37 Juliet Hunt and Nalini Kasynathan, ‘Pathways to Empowerment? Reflections onMicrofinance and Transformation in Gender Relations in South Asia’, pp. 48 and NaliniVisvanathan, Duggan, Lynn and Laurie Nisonoff, The Women, Gender and DevelopmentReader (New York, 1997), p. 53.

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has found that women’s social networks can also play an

important role in supporting women to challenge male

violence.38 The group structure gives women the

confidence to stand up to things that they previously

lacked the courage to face.

Challenging Patriarchal Relations within the Household

While the private sphere has been widely regarded as of

limited relevance to the state, this essay will argue,

in line with many Gender and Development (GAD)

theorists, that the ‘personal is the political.’39 The provision of

microfinance to women has a considerable impact on the

position of the men within the household, especially, ‘as it

is generally seen to be the husband’s responsibility to provide for the

family.’40 There is a prominent link between notions of

masculinity and the duty to provide, which microfinance

has begun to challenge. While action needs to be taken

to avoid alienating men by altering their traditional

roles, microfinance begins to relieve the burden of both

men and women by allowing them to move away from

entrenched gendered roles. The provision of microfinance

can, together with the group-lending model, also work to

limit household violence by highlighting women’s value.

As one Bangladeshi woman remarked, ‘if womankind has no money

in her hand, mankind tolerates her less…now he sees the woman has money

38 Hunt and Kasynathan, ‘Pathways to Empowerment?’, pp. 48. 39 Andrew Heywood, Political Ideologies: An Introduction (New York, 2007), p. 232.

40 Susan Johnson, ‘Gender Relations, Empowerment and Microcredit: Moving on from aLost Decade’, pp. 239.

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in her hands so that now if anything happens to me, it is his head that

hurts.’41

A woman’s relationship with her children is also likely

to be affected by the provision of microfinance because,

‘when women make money, they tend to bring benefits to the whole family,

particularly their children.’42 Indeed, evidence suggests that

daughters are more likely to be sent to school if their

mothers receive loans than if their fathers do.43 The

education of girls is of particular relevance throughout

India and Bangladesh because the dowry system is still

heavily practiced and means that female children are

often regarded as an economic burden.44 By providing

girls with the skills and capital to be financially

self-sufficient, they will become valuable in their own

right.45 To encourage this, the Grameen Bank has also

used a system of asking each client to abide by ‘Sixteen

Decisions,’ including providing education for their

children and refusing to abide by the dowry system.46

When used correctly, MFIs can therefore certainly

contribute to the empowerment of future generations, as

well as the present.

The ‘Double Burden’

41 Naila Kabeer, ‘‘Can buy me love?’ Re-evaluating the empowerment potential of loansto women in rural Bangladesh,’ < http://www.ids.ac.uk/files/Dp363.pdf> (Accessed 27April 2013), p. 126. 42 Muhammad Yunus, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism (UnitedStates, 2007), p. 55. 43 Hunt and Kasynathan, ‘Pathways to Empowerment?’, p.46. 44 David Hulme and Arun Thankom, Microfinance: A Reader (New York, 2009), p. 38.45 Muhammad Yunus, Banker to the Poor (Great Britain, 1998), p. 99. 46 Yunus, Creating a World Without Poverty, pp. 58.

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The term ‘Double Burden’ is used to convey the fact that

while many women experience considerable gains from

microfinance, they are still expected to perform their

traditional care-giving role within the household.47 Many

women are facing an increasing amount of pressure from

the expectation to perform highly in all areas of their

lives. While microfinance is a tool of empowerment, it

is still subject to the wider gender relations in which

it is operating. In order to enable women to cope with

the greater demands that empowerment may necessarily

involve, men must also be willing to take a greater role

in household responsibilities.

Many women may also face an additional burden from

increasingly aggressive and commercialised MFIs. For

this, it is useful to look at the case study of Andhra

Pradesh, ‘the epicentre of India’s microfinance movement.’48 In

October 2010, just after SKS Microfinance’s successful

Initial Public Offering, the MFI was blamed for the

suicides of fifty-seven farmers.49 The rush to grow at

all costs and the so called ‘quest for numbers’ led to ‘several

questionable practices relating to deceptive interest rates, coercive collective

practices and over-lending’ which all eventually resulted in

the suicide epidemic.50 While microfinance, when used

correctly, can empower women, when used incorrectly,

47 Bart Casier, ‘The Impact of Microcredit Programmes on Survivalist WomenEntrepreneurs in The Gambia and Senegal’ in Slyvia Chant (eds), The International Handbookof Gender and Poverty, pp. 616. 48 Banerjee and Duflo, Poor Economics, pp. 175. 49 Banerjee and Duflo, Poor Economics, pp. 169. 50 Thomas Dichter and Malcolm Harper, What’s Wrong with Microfinance? (United Kingdom,2007), p. 52.

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women can suffer significantly either by taking their

own lives or by losing male family members, which will

make their fight for survival even harder.

Women and Self-Empowerment

One of the most beneficial elements of microfinance is

the ability it has for self-empowerment. One authority

has written, ‘the most important form of empowerment involves

“power from within” where self-perceptions and understandings are

challenged in such a way as to enable women to think of alternative ways of

existing.’51 In a study conducted in Bangladesh, ‘ninety-four per

cent of women stated that they believed their husband to be superior to

them...when asked why, fifty-nine per cent of women explained that the

husband is the earning member of the household.’52 It seems that

without economic earning power, women lack self-

confidence and self-worth. By changing this,

microfinance allows women to believe in themselves and

their own abilities.

The Future of Microfinance

The final section of this essay will explore the three

necessary steps needed to ensure that microfinance

continues to contribute to women’s empowerment. Firstly,

MFIs must be monitored, especially where there is

instability in the market. As has been seen since the

51 Joanne Sharp, John Briggs, Hoda Yacoub and Nabila Hamed, ‘Women’s Empowerment: ACritical Re-Evaluation of Poverty-Alleviation Project in Egypt’ in Slyvia Chant(eds), The International Handbook of Gender Poverty, pp. 589. 52 Mark Pitt, Shaidhur Khandker and Jennifer Cartwright, ‘Empowering Women withMicrofinance: Evidence from Bangladesh’, pp. 799.

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financial crisis in 200853, ‘only the largest and most aggressively

commercialised MFIs are likely to survive’ which often necessarily

involves, ‘a complete loss of the original social mission.’54 Monitoring

and greater transparency will help to ensure that the

nature of MFIs are controlled, so as to maintain their

empowering potential. For those well-intentioned MFIs

struggling to stay afloat in an expensive and

competitive industry, it is clear that investment will

be required. The international community must provide

this when necessary and view microfinance as an

effective and worthwhile investment. Lastly,

microfinance has to be conceived as part of a broader

strategy for the transformation of gender inequality.55

At the heart of this approach needs to be a recognition

of ‘knowledge as the key instrument of empowerment.’56 Evidence has

shown that the use of microfinance has yielded the most

successful results when it has been combined with the

distribution of knowledge.57 Education will allow women

to build their self-confidence, learn business skills

and overcome cultural and religious traditions which

prevent them from entering the public sphere.

53 Claire Provost, ‘The Rise and Fall of Microfinance,’ 21 November 2012, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2012/nov/21/rise-fall-microfinance > (Accessed 27 April 2013). 54 Milford, Bateman, Why Doesn’t Microfinance Work?, pp. 130. 55 Milford, Bateman, Why Doesn’t Microfinance Work?, pp. 46. 56 Neera Burra, ‘Women and Microcredit: Some Challenges’ < http://www.bb.undp.org/uploads/file/pdfs/poverty/Library/MED%20Library/Women%20and%20microcredit.pdf > (Accessed 27 April 2013). 57 Neera Burra, ‘Women and Microcredit: Some Challenges’ < http://www.bb.undp.org/uploads/file/pdfs/poverty/Library/MED%20Library/Women%20and%20microcredit.pdf > (Accessed 27 April 2013).

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Overall, an analysis of microfinance in terms of its

broad economic, political and social impact has

demonstrated that it does aid the empowerment process.

By helping women to achieve economic independence,

enabling them to participate in the public sphere, in

beginning to overcome patriarchal relations in the

household and wider community and lastly by helping them

to build on their own confidence, microfinance

contributes substantially to the definition of

empowerment identified at the start of this essay. While

the effects of microfinance can, in some cases, increase

the burden upon women, this is a result of flaws in

commercially driven MFIs, as opposed to problems with

the traditional microfinance model exemplified by the

Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. In order to ensure that

microfinance continues to work towards the empowerment

of women, there needs to be greater regulation and an

adequate funding of those MFIs most committed to the

social mission of microfinance. When it is used in

conjunction with other development tools, the most

important being the provision of education, I truly

believe that microfinance will continue to contribute to

bringing about lasting and considerable empowerment for

women across the developing world.

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Student ID: 1001594

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