IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpdc/0108004.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Women, Microfinance, and Savings: Lessons and Proposals

Author

Listed:
  • Rebecca Vonderlack

    (Washington University in St. Louis)

  • Mark Schreiner

    (Washington University in St. Louis)

Abstract

Microfinance—both credit and savings—has potential to improve the well- being of poor women in developing countries. This paper explores practical ways to achieve that potential. Based on lessons from informal saving mechanisms that women already use, the paper proposes two savings services designed to address the development issues that confront women. The proposals call for safe-deposit boxes and for matched savings accounts for health care or education.

Suggested Citation

  • Rebecca Vonderlack & Mark Schreiner, 2001. "Women, Microfinance, and Savings: Lessons and Proposals," Development and Comp Systems 0108004, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 27 Dec 2001.
  • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpdc:0108004
    Note: Type of Document - Adobe Acrobat 3.0; prepared on Windows 98; to print on Adobe Acrobat 3.0; pages: 25; figures: Included in pdf file
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/dev/papers/0108/0108004.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sondra Beverly & Amanda Moore & Mark Schreiner, 2001. "A Framework of Asset-Accumulation Stages and Strategies," Development and Comp Systems 0109004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Kabeer, Naila, 2001. "Conflicts Over Credit: Re-Evaluating the Empowerment Potential of Loans to Women in Rural Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 63-84, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. R. Casselman & Linda Sama & Abraham Stefanidis, 2015. "Differential Social Performance of Religiously-Affiliated Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) in Base of Pyramid (BoP) Markets," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 132(3), pages 539-552, December.
    2. Ashraf, Nava & Gons, Nathalie & Karlan, Dean S. & Yin, Wesley, 2003. "A Review of Commitment Savings Products in Development Countries," ADB Economics Working Paper Series 45, Asian Development Bank.
    3. Juanah, Momoh, 2005. "The Role of Micro-financing in Rural Poverty Reduction in Developing Countries," Wismar Discussion Papers 18/2005, Hochschule Wismar, Wismar Business School.
    4. Sondra Beverly & Amanda Moore & Mark Schreiner, 2001. "A Framework of Asset-Accumulation Stages and Strategies," Development and Comp Systems 0109004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. P.C. Ike & D.E. Umuedafe, 2013. "Determinants of Savings and Capital Formation among Rural Farmers in Isoko North Local Government Area of Delta State, Nigeria," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 3(10), pages 1289-1297, October.
    6. Matteo Marinangeli & Andrea Filippo Presbitero, 2011. "Can the Poor Save More? Evidence from Bangladesh," Mo.Fi.R. Working Papers 57, Money and Finance Research group (Mo.Fi.R.) - Univ. Politecnica Marche - Dept. Economic and Social Sciences.
    7. Estrin, Saul & Mickiewicz, Tomasz, 2009. "Do Institutions Have a Greater Effect on Female Entrepreneurs?," IZA Discussion Papers 4577, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Tim Fry & Sandra Mihajilo & Roslyn Russell & Robert Brooks, 2008. "The Factors Influencing Saving in a Matched Savings Program: Goals, Knowledge of Payment Instruments, and Other Behavior," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 234-250, June.
    9. Martinson Ankrah Twumasi & Hongyun Zheng & Love Offeibea Asiedu-Ayeh & Anthony Siaw & Yuansheng Jiang, 2023. "Access to Financial Services and Its Impact on Household Income: Evidence from Rural Ghana," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 35(4), pages 869-890, August.
    10. Johnson, Susan, 2004. "Gender Norms in Financial Markets: Evidence from Kenya," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 1355-1374, August.
    11. Thorsten Beck & Haki Pamuk & Burak R. Uras, 2014. "Entrepreneurial Saving Practices and Reinvestment: Theory and Evidence from Tanzanian MSEs," CSAE Working Paper Series 2014-15, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Helen M. Haugh & Alka Talwar, 2016. "Linking Social Entrepreneurship and Social Change: The Mediating Role of Empowerment," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 133(4), pages 643-658, February.
    2. Bhuiyan, Muhammad Faress & Ivlevs, Artjoms, 2019. "Micro-entrepreneurship and subjective well-being: Evidence from rural Bangladesh," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 625-645.
    3. repec:unu:wpaper:wp2012-02 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Islam, Asadul & Nguyen, Chau & Smyth, Russell, 2015. "Does microfinance change informal lending in village economies? Evidence from Bangladesh," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 141-156.
    5. Supriya Garikipati & Susan Johnson & Isabelle Guérin & Ariane Szafarz, 2017. "Microfinance and Gender: Issues, Challenges and The Road Ahead," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(5), pages 641-648, May.
    6. Lídia Farré, 2013. "The Role of Men in the Economic and Social Development of Women: Implications for Gender Equality," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 28(1), pages 22-51, February.
    7. Rania Salem & Yuk Fai Cheong & Kathryn M. Yount, 2018. "Is Women’s Work a Pathway to their Agency in Rural Minya, Egypt?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 136(2), pages 807-831, April.
    8. Dileni Gunewardena & Abdoulaye Seck, 2020. "Heterogeneity in entrepreneurship in developing countries: Risk, credit, and migration and the entrepreneurial propensity of youth and women," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(3), pages 713-725, August.
    9. Ribes-Giner, G. & Moya-Clemente, I. & Cervelló-Royo, R. & Perello-Marin, M.R., 2018. "Domestic economic and social conditions empowering female entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 182-189.
    10. Matthew Painter & Jonathan Vespa, 2012. "The Role of Cohabitation in Asset and Debt Accumulation During Marriage," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 33(4), pages 491-506, December.
    11. Kochar, Anjini & Nagabhushana, Closepet & Sarkar, Ritwik & Shah, Rohan & Singh, Geeta, 2022. "Financial access and women's role in household decisions: Empirical evidence from India's National Rural Livelihoods project," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    12. Rao, Smriti, 2008. "Reforms with a Female Face: Gender, Liberalization, and Economic Policy in Andhra Pradesh, India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(7), pages 1213-1232, July.
    13. Simon Zaby, 2019. "Science Mapping of the Global Knowledge Base on Microfinance: Influential Authors and Documents, 1989–2019," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(14), pages 1-21, July.
    14. Supriya Garikipati & Isabelle Agier & Isabelle Guérin & Ariane Szafarz, 2017. "The Cost of Empowerment: Multiple Sources of Women’s Debt in Rural India," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(5), pages 700-722, May.
    15. Mukherjee, Arghya Kusum & Kundu, Amit, 2012. "Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojona as a Safety Net: Evidence from Murshidabad District of West Bengal," Bangladesh Development Studies, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), vol. 35(1), pages 79-103, March.
    16. Boulier, Bryan & Emran, M. Shahe & Hoque, Nazmul, 2021. "Access to Credit, Education, and Women’s Say in the Household: Evidence from Bangladesh," MPRA Paper 109009, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Gutiérrez-Nieto, Begoña & Serrano-Cinca, Carlos, 2019. "20 years of research in microfinance: An information management approach," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 183-197.
    18. Nebal Al Maaitah, 2019. "The Legitimacy of Profit of Microlending Institutions and Womens Empowerment: A Case Study from Jordan," Theory Methodology Practice (TMP), Faculty of Economics, University of Miskolc, vol. 15(01), pages 3-17.
    19. Sekhon, Sumeet & Grant, Miriam, 2021. "Patterns of loan use for women’s self-help groups in rural Rajasthan," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 24(C).
    20. Tunvir Ahamed Shohel & Sara Niner & Samanthi J. Gunawardana, 2023. "‘Even Though I Get a Loan, My Husband Controls It’: Rhetoric Versus Reality of Empowering Bangladeshi Women Through Microfinance Programs," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 35(4), pages 794-819, August.
    21. Supriya Garikipati, 2012. "Microcredit and Women's Empowerment: Through the Lens of Time-Use Data from Rural India," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 43(3), pages 719-750, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    gender; development; savings incentives; Individual Development Accounts; sexism;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O57 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Comparative Studies of Countries
    • N3 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpdc:0108004. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: EconWPA (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.