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Household Access to Microcredit and Children's Food Security in Rural Malawi: A Gender Perspective

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Author Info
Hazarika, Gautam () (University of Texas at Brownsville)
Guha-Khasnobis, Basudeb () (UNU-WIDER)
Abstract

Using data from the 1995 Malawi Financial Markets and Food Security Survey, this study seeks to discover if women's relative control over household resources or intra-household bargaining power in rural Malawi, gauged by their access to microcredit, plays a role in children's food security, measured by anthropometric nutritional Z-scores. Access to microcredit is assessed in a novel way as self-reported credit limits at microcredit organizations. Since credit limits, that is, the maximum sums that might be borrowed, hinge upon supply-side factors such as the availability of credit programs and the financial resources of lenders, it is plausible they are more exogenous than demand driven loan uptake or participation in microcredit organizations, the common ways of gauging access to microcredit. It is indicated that whereas the access to microcredit of adult female household members improves 0–6 year old girls', though not boys', long-term nutrition as measured by height-for-age, the access to microcredit of male members has no such salutary effect on either girls' or boys' nutritional status. This may be interpreted as evidence of a positive relation between women's relative control over household resources and young girls' food security. That women's access to microcredit improves young girls' long-term nutrition may be explained in part by the subsidiary finding that it raises household expenditure on food.

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Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 3793.

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Length: 18 pages
Date of creation: Oct 2008
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Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3793

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Related research
Keywords: intra-household distribution; bargaining; microcredit; gender; Malawi;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
O15 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

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References listed on IDEAS
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    Other versions:
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  6. Thomas, D., 1989. "Intra-Household Resource Allocation: An Inferential Approach," Papers 586, Yale - Economic Growth Center.
  7. Diagne, Aliou, 1998. "Impact of access to credit on income and food security in Malawi," FCND discussion papers 46, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). [Downloadable!]
  8. Hoddinott, John & Haddad, Lawrence, 1995. "Does Female Income Share Influence Household Expenditures? Evidence from Cote d'Ivoire," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 57(1), pages 77-96, February.
    Other versions:
  9. Lundberg, S.J. & Pollak, R.A. & Wales, T.J., 1994. "Do Husbands and Wives Pool Their Resources? Evidence from U.K. Child Benefit," Discussion Papers in Economics at the University of Washington 94-6, Department of Economics at the University of Washington.
    Other versions:
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