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Scale and sustainability: The impact of a women’s self-help group program on household economic well-being in India

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Title Scale and sustainability: The impact of a women’s self-help group program on household economic well-being in India
 
Creator Raghunathan, Kalyani
Kumar, Neha
Gupta, Shivani
Thai, Giang
Scott, Samuel
Choudhury, Avijit
Khetan, Madhu
Menon, Purnima
Quisumbing, Agnes R.
 
Subject sustainability
women
households
economics
microfinance
rural
credit
developing countries
household consumption
assets
intervention
livestock
livelihoods
poor
poverty
expenditure
gender
development
 
Description Microfinance groups are a prominent source of small-scale rural credit in many developing countries. In India, evidence of the impact of the now ubiquitous women-only savings and credit self-help groups (SHGs) on household consumption and asset accumulation is inconclusive and based on small-scale interventions. Further, little is known about the sustainability of impacts at scale. We use panel data on close to 2500 households from five states in India to estimate the impact of SHG membership on household expenditure and asset ownership. Over four years, we find small but significant impacts of SHG membership on household expenditure and livestock ownership. Membership duration has a modest effect, suggesting that initial impacts may taper off as the program scales up, though small sample sizes limit our ability to draw inferences. Accompanying evidence on pathways is compelling; related work shows that SHG participation improves information, empowerment, and access to entitlements. While the direct impacts of SHG membership may not suffice to fill gaps in access to credit faced by the rural poor, impacts along these additional pathways could intensify the benefits of these groups
 
Date 2023-04-03
2023-01-05T20:53:54Z
2023-01-05T20:53:54Z
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier Raghunathan, Kalyani; Kumar, Neha; Gupta, Shivani; Thai, Giang; Scott, Samuel; Choudhury, Avijit; Khetan, Madhu; Menon, Purnima; Quisumbing, Agnes R. Scale and sustainability: The impact of a women’s self-help group program on household economic well-being in India. Journal of Development Studies. Article in press. First published online on December 14, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2022.2154151
0022-0388
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/126639
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00220388.2022.2154151
https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2022.2154151
 
Language en
 
Rights CC-BY-4.0
Open Access
 
Publisher Informa UK Limited
 
Source Journal of Development Studies