IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bnr/wpaper/18.html

Women’s Empowerment as a Result of Microcredit Loans in Bangladesh?

Author

Listed:
  • Lex Loro

    (American University, Washington, DC, United States)

Abstract

Women comprise half of Bangladesh’s population and—as is the case in most developing countries—are considered the lesser sex, receiving inequitable treatment in the home and workplace. However, the status and power of women has improved drastically since Grameen Bank opened its doors thirty years ago. Despite some critics, the fast majority of scholars come to the conclusion that microcredit loans encouraged poor women and significantly increased their self-esteem and self worth, and thereby empowered them. Due to microcredit, not only have Bangladeshi women gained higher status in society, but also the Bangladeshi economy has benefited from the inclusion of so many additional people and businesses into the economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Lex Loro, 2013. "Women’s Empowerment as a Result of Microcredit Loans in Bangladesh?," Bangladesh Development Research Working Paper Series (BDRWPS) BDRWPS No. 18, Bangladesh Development Research Center (BDRC).
    • Handle: RePEc:bnr:wpaper:18
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bangladeshstudies.org/files/WPS_no18.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:wbk:wbpubs:6014 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Md. Abul Basher, 2007. "Empowerment of microcredit participants and its spillover effects: evidence from the Grameen bank of Bangladesh," Journal of Developing Areas, Tennessee State University, College of Business, vol. 40(2), pages 173-183, January-M.
    3. Moser, Caroline O. N., 1998. "The asset vulnerability framework: Reassessing urban poverty reduction strategies," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 1-19, January.
    4. Pitt, Mark M & Khandker, Shahidur R & Cartwright, Jennifer, 2006. "Empowering Women with Micro Finance: Evidence from Bangladesh," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(4), pages 791-831, July.
    5. Amin, Ruhul & St. Pierre, Maurice & Ahmed, Ashraf & Haq, Runa, 2001. "Integration of an Essential Services Package (ESP) in Child and Reproductive Health and Family Planning with a Micro-credit Program for Poor Women: Experience from a Pilot Project in Rural Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(9), pages 1611-1621, September.
    6. repec:wbk:wbpubs:13191 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Mohammad Samiul Islam, 2014. "Women’s Empowerment in Bangladesh: A Case Study of Two NGOs," Bangladesh Development Research Working Paper Series (BDRWPS) BDRWPS No. 23, Bangladesh Development Research Center (BDRC).

    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. Duvendack, Maren & Palmer-Jones, Richard, 2011. "The microfinance of reproduction and the reproduction of microfinance: understanding the connections between microfinance, empowerment, contraception and fertility in Bangladesh in the 1990s," MPRA Paper 32384, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Dahoun, Dieudonné Bleossi & Manlan, Olivier & Vodonou, Cosme & Mongan, Saint-Martin & Mededji, Damien & Alofa, Janvier P., 2013. "Microcrédit, pauvreté et autonomisation des femmes au Bénin," PEP Working Papers 160426, Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP).
    3. Dieudonné Bleossi Dahoun & Olivier Manlan & Cosme Vodonou & Saint-Martin Mongan & Damien Mededji & Janvier P. Alofa, 2013. "Microcrédit, pauvreté et autonomisation des femmes au Bénin," Working Papers PMMA 2013-13, PEP-PMMA.
    4. Langyintuo, Augustine S. & Mungoma, Catherine, 2008. "The effect of household wealth on the adoption of improved maize varieties in Zambia," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 550-559, December.
    5. Janz, Teresa & Augsburg, Britta & Gassmann, Franziska & Nimeh, Zina, 2023. "Leaving no one behind: Urban poverty traps in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    6. Jon D. Unruh, 2008. "Toward sustainable livelihoods after war: Reconstituting rural land tenure systems," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 32(2), pages 103-115, May.
    7. van den Bold, Mara & Quisumbing, Agnes R. & Gillespie, Stuart, 2013. "Women’s empowerment and nutrition: An evidence review," IFPRI discussion papers 1294, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    8. Carlos de la Espriella, 2009. "A Technique for Small-area Poverty Analyses," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 46(11), pages 2399-2421, October.
    9. Ashraf, Nava & Karlan, Dean & Yin, Wesley, 2010. "Female Empowerment: Impact of a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 333-344, March.
    10. 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.
    11. Nicola Banks, 2016. "Livelihoods Limitations: The Political Economy of Urban Poverty in Dhaka, Bangladesh," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 47(2), pages 266-292, March.
    12. Madhuri Mahato & Julie Vardhan, 2021. "Discourses by Didis of Community Kitchens: A Case on Women Empowerment," South Asian Journal of Business and Management Cases, , vol. 10(2), pages 145-157, August.
    13. Ellis, Frank & Bahiigwa, Godfrey, 2003. "Livelihoods and Rural Poverty Reduction in Uganda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 997-1013, June.
    14. Francesca Marchetta, 2011. "On the Move Livelihood Strategies in Northern Ghana," CERDI Working papers halshs-00591137, HAL.
    15. BΘnΘ, C. & Russell, A.J.M., 2007. "Diagnostic study of the Volta Basin fisheries: Part 2 Livelihoods and poverty analysis, current trends and projections," Monographs, The WorldFish Center, number 38823, April.
    16. Paul Mosley & Robert Holzmann & Steen Jorgensen, 1999. "Social protection as social risk management: conceptual underpinnings for the social protection sector strategy paper," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(7), pages 1005-1027.
    17. Jianjun Huai, 2016. "Role of Livelihood Capital in Reducing Climatic Vulnerability: Insights of Australian Wheat from 1990–2010," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(3), pages 1-18, March.
    18. Parikh, Priti & Fu, Kun & Parikh, Himanshu & McRobie, Allan & George, Gerard, 2015. "Infrastructure Provision, Gender, and Poverty in Indian Slums," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 468-486.
    19. Savath, Vivien & Fletschner, Diana & Peterman, Amber & Santos, Florence, 2014. "Land, assets, and livelihoods: Gendered analysis of evidence from Odisha State in India," IFPRI discussion papers 1323, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    20. Reitmann, Ann-Kristin & Goedhuys, Micheline & Grimm, Michael & Nillesen, Eleonora E.M., 2019. "Measuring attitudes on gender equality and domestic violence in the Arab context : The role of framing, priming and interviewer effects," MERIT Working Papers 2019-027, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:bnr:wpaper:18. 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: Bernhard Gunter The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Bernhard Gunter to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/brdccus.html .

    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.