IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/amu/wpaper/0208.html

Effect of Microfinance on Vulnerability, Poverty and Risk in Low Income Households

Author

Listed:
  • Ranjula Bali Swain
  • Maria Floro

Abstract

Uncertainty and unpredictability faced by low-income households increase their vulnerability making poverty even more unbearable. India’s National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD)-initiated Self-Help Group (SHG) program, which is currently the largest and fastest growing microfinance program in the developing world, has been aggressively promoted as a way of combating poverty. This paper investigates whether or not SHG participation results in reducing poverty and vulnerability. A theoretical framework is developed to examine the mechanisms through which the pecuniary and non-pecuniary effects of the SHG program on the beneficiaries’ earnings and empowerment, influence their households’ ability to manage risk. Going beyond the traditional poverty estimates, we use a vulnerability measure which quantifies the welfare loss associated with poverty as well as different types of risks like aggregate and idiosyncratic risks. Applying this measure to an Indian panel survey data for 2000 and 2003, we find that SHG members have lower vulnerability as compared to a group of non-SHG (control) members. Furthermore, we find that the poverty contributes to about 80 percent of the vulnerability faced by the household followed by aggregate risk.

Suggested Citation

  • Ranjula Bali Swain & Maria Floro, 2008. "Effect of Microfinance on Vulnerability, Poverty and Risk in Low Income Households," Working Papers 2008-02, American University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:amu:wpaper:0208
    DOI: 10.17606/cw25-5n70
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.17606/cw25-5n70
    File Function: First version, 2008
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17606/cw25-5n70?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Abdul Ghafar Ismail & Bayu Taufiq Possumah, 2014. "Poverty and social security in Islam," Chapters, in: M. Kabir Hassan & Mervyn K. Lewis (ed.), Handbook on Islam and Economic Life, chapter 22, pages iii-iii, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Waseem Ul Hameed & Muhammad Haseeb & Jawad Iqbal & Leonardus W. W. Mihardjo & Kittisak Jermsittiparsert, 2022. "Environmental disaster and women self‐sustainability—A survey study on microfinance female clientele in Pakistan," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(3), pages 3599-3622, July.
    3. Bali Swain, Ranjula & Floro, Maria, 2010. "Reducing Vulnerability through Microfinance: Evidence from Indian Self Help Group Program," Working Paper Series 2010:23, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    4. Wook Sohn & Laila Ume, 2019. "The Impact of Microfinance on Poverty Alleviation: The Case of Pakistan," Journal of Asian Development, Macrothink Institute, vol. 5(3), pages 16-36, November.
    5. Evans Jadotte, 2010. "Vulnerability to Poverty: A Microeconometric Approach and Application to the Republic of Haiti," Working Papers wpdea1004, Department of Applied Economics at Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona.
    6. Ukpe, Offiong Uma & Nweze, Noble Jackson & Arene, Chukwuemeka John, 2016. "Food Insecurity Vulnerability Status Of Farm Households In Niger- Delta, Nigeria," International Journal of Food and Agricultural Economics (IJFAEC), Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University, Department of Economics and Finance, vol. 4(01), pages 1-15, January.
    7. B, Ranjula & Wallentin, Fan Yang, 2008. "Economic or Non-Economic Factors – What Empowers Women?," Working Paper Series 2008:11, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    8. Kundu, Amit, 2010. "Effectiveness of Microfinance under SGSY scheme to reduce Poverty and Vulnerability of Rural Households: A Natural Experiment," MPRA Paper 35193, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 07 Aug 2011.
    9. Koloma, Yaya, 2019. "Microfinance et réduction de la pauvreté selon le genre au Mali : un réexamen des données de 2007-2008 [Microfinance and Poverty Reduction by Gender in Mali: A Review of 2007-2008 data]," MPRA Paper 94745, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Arghya Kusum Mukherjee & Amit Kundu, 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty

    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:amu:wpaper:0208. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Thomas Meal (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.american.edu/cas/economics/ .

    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.