Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp12940.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Can Women's Self-Help Groups Contribute to Sustainable Development? Evidence of Capability Changes from Northern India

Author

Listed:
  • Anand, Paul

    (The Open University)

  • Saxena, Swati

    (Rajiv Gandhi Trust)

  • Gonzales Martinez, Rolando

    (Agder University College)

  • Dang, Hai-Anh H

    (World Bank)

Abstract
This paper offers an evaluation of a supported women's self help program with over 1.5 million participants in one of the poorest rural regions of the world (Uttar Pradesh, India). Methodologically, it shows how indicators from the direct capability measurement literature can be adapted for program evaluation in a low income country setting. Unique data on capabilities across a range of dimensions are then developed for some 6000 women and used to estimate a number of propensity score matching models. The substantive empirical results of these models indicate that many of the capability indicators are higher for program members, that the difference appears robust, and that there are significant benefits for those from scheduled tribes and lower castes. The discussion highlights two points. First, human development improvements offered by multi-strand programs can help to explain the paradox as to why nearly 100 million women (in India alone) have participated in self help programs despite modest global research evidence for micro-finance impacts on nominal incomes. Second, results argue strongly for the use of capability measures over agency measures focused solely on household decision-making to assess women's empowerment when structural causes of disempowerment, external to the household, are present and significant.

Suggested Citation

  • Anand, Paul & Saxena, Swati & Gonzales Martinez, Rolando & Dang, Hai-Anh H, 2020. "Can Women's Self-Help Groups Contribute to Sustainable Development? Evidence of Capability Changes from Northern India," IZA Discussion Papers 12940, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12940
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp12940.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marcel Fafchamps & Eliana La Ferrara, 2012. "Self-Help Groups and Mutual Assistance: Evidence from Urban Kenya," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(4), pages 707-733.
    2. José Roche, 2013. "Monitoring Progress in Child Poverty Reduction: Methodological Insights and Illustration to the Case Study of Bangladesh," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 112(2), pages 363-390, June.
    3. Simon, Judit & Anand, Paul & Gray, Alastair & Rugkåsa, Jorun & Yeeles, Ksenija & Burns, Tom, 2013. "Operationalising the capability approach for outcome measurement in mental health research," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 187-196.
    4. Ahlin, Christian & Lin, Jocelyn & Maio, Michael, 2011. "Where does microfinance flourish? Microfinance institution performance in macroeconomic context," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 105-120, July.
    5. Anand, Paul & Krishnakumar, Jaya & Tran, Ngoc Bich, 2011. "Measuring welfare: Latent variable models for happiness and capabilities in the presence of unobservable heterogeneity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(3-4), pages 205-215, April.
    6. Swain, Ranjula Bali & Varghese, Adel, 2009. "Does Self Help Group Participation Lead to Asset Creation?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(10), pages 1674-1682, October.
    7. Greco, Giulia & Skordis-Worrall, Jolene & Mkandawire, Bryan & Mills, Anne, 2015. "What is a good life? Selecting capabilities to assess women's quality of life in rural Malawi," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 69-78.
    8. Goodman, Rachael, 2017. "Borrowing Money, Exchanging Relationships: Making Microfinance Fit into Local Lives in Kumaon, India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 362-373.
    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. Matthias Doepke & Michèle Tertilt, 2019. "Does female empowerment promote economic development?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 309-343, December.
    11. Datta, Upamanyu, 2015. "Socio-Economic Impacts of JEEViKA: A Large-Scale Self-Help Group Project in Bihar, India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 1-18.
    12. Frances Stewart, 2005. "Groups and Capabilities," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(2), pages 185-204.
    13. Gries, Thomas & Naudé, Wim, 2011. "Entrepreneurship and human development: A capability approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(3), pages 216-224.
    14. Luc Ootegem & Elsy Verhofstadt, 2012. "Using Capabilities as an Alternative Indicator for Well-being," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 106(1), pages 133-152, March.
    15. Cox-Edwards, Alejandra & Rodríguez-Oreggia, Eduardo, 2009. "Remittances and Labor Force Participation in Mexico: An Analysis Using Propensity Score Matching," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 1004-1014, May.
    16. Garikipati, Supriya, 2008. "The Impact of Lending to Women on Household Vulnerability and Women's Empowerment: Evidence from India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(12), pages 2620-2642, December.
    17. Ortrud Lessmann & Felix Rauschmayer, 2013. "Re-conceptualizing Sustainable Development on the Basis of the Capability Approach: A Model and Its Difficulties," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(1), pages 95-114, February.
    18. Mario Biggeri & Andrea Ferrannini, 2014. "Opportunity Gap Analysis: Procedures and Methods for Applying the Capability Approach in Development Initiatives," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(1), pages 60-78, January.
    19. Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, 2003. "The Human Development Paradigm: Operationalizing Sen'S Ideas On Capabilities," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(2-3), pages 301-317.
    20. Quisumbing, Agnes R. & Pandolfelli, Lauren, 2010. "Promising Approaches to Address the Needs of Poor Female Farmers: Resources, Constraints, and Interventions," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 581-592, April.
    21. Paul Anand & Graham Hunter & Ian Carter & Keith Dowding & Francesco Guala & Martin Van Hees, 2009. "The Development of Capability Indicators," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(1), pages 125-152.
    22. Lorgelly, Paula K. & Lorimer, Karen & Fenwick, Elisabeth A.L. & Briggs, Andrew H. & Anand, Paul, 2015. "Operationalising the capability approach as an outcome measure in public health: The development of the OCAP-18," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 68-81.
    23. Mozaffar Qizilbash, 1997. "A weakness of the capability approach with respect to gender justice," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(2), pages 251-262.
    24. Abhijit Banerjee & Esther Duflo & Rachel Glennerster & Cynthia Kinnan, 2015. "The Miracle of Microfinance? Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 22-53, January.
    25. Parida, Purina Chandra & Sinha, Anushree, 2010. "Performance and Sustainability of Self-Help Groups in India: A Gender Perspective," Asian Development Review, Asian Development Bank, vol. 27(1), pages 80-103.
    26. Amartya Sen, 2013. "The Ends and Means of Sustainability," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(1), pages 6-20, February.
    27. Nicolai Suppa, 2015. "Capability Deprivation and Life Satisfaction. Evidence from German Panel Data," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(2), pages 173-199, May.
    28. Sintayehu Hailu Alemu & Luuk Van Kempen & Ruerd Ruben, 2018. "Women Empowerment Through Self-Help Groups: The Bittersweet Fruits of Collective Apple Cultivation in Highland Ethiopia," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(3), pages 308-330, July.
    29. Alkire, Sabina & Meinzen-Dick, Ruth & Peterman, Amber & Quisumbing, Agnes & Seymour, Greg & Vaz, Ana, 2013. "The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 71-91.
    30. Luuk Kempen, 2009. "The ‘Downside’ of Women Empowerment in India: An Experimental Inquiry into the Role of Expectations," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 94(3), pages 465-482, December.
    31. Brian P. Greaney & Joseph P. Kaboski & Eva Van Leemput, 2016. "Can Self-Help Groups Really Be "Self-Help"?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(4), pages 1614-1644.
    32. Trommlerová, Sofia Karina & Klasen, Stephan & Leßmann, Ortrud, 2015. "Determinants of Empowerment in a Capability-Based Poverty Approach: Evidence from The Gambia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 1-15.
    33. Giulia Greco & Jolene Skordis-Worrall & Anne Mills, 2018. "Development, Validity, and Reliability of the Women’s Capabilities Index," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(3), pages 271-288, July.
    34. Montgomery, Heather & Weiss, John, 2011. "Can Commercially-oriented Microfinance Help Meet the Millennium Development Goals? Evidence from Pakistan," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 87-109, January.
    35. Erica Field & Seema Jayachandran & Rohini Pande, 2010. "Do Traditional Institutions Constrain Female Entrepreneurship? A Field Experiment on Business Training in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 125-129, May.
    36. Vandewalle, Lore, 2017. "The Role of Accountants in Indian Self-Help Groups: A Trade-off between Financial and Non-Financial Benefits," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 177-192.
    37. Krishnakumar, Jaya & Ballon, Paola, 2008. "Estimating Basic Capabilities: A Structural Equation Model Applied to Bolivia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 992-1010, June.
    38. Becerril, Javier & Abdulai, Awudu, 2010. "The Impact of Improved Maize Varieties on Poverty in Mexico: A Propensity Score-Matching Approach," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 1024-1035, July.
    39. Meera Tiwari & Solava Ibrahim, 2012. "Sustainable Human Development at the Grass Roots: Different Contexts, Similar Ingredients?," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 69-85, November.
    40. Prennushi, G. & Gupta, A., 2014. "Women's empowerment and socio-economic outcomes : impacts of the Andhra Pradesh rural poverty reduction program," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6841, The World Bank.
    41. Singh, Prerna, 2011. "We-ness and Welfare: A Longitudinal Analysis of Social Development in Kerala, India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 282-293, February.
    42. Kanbur, Ravi, 2016. "Capability, Opportunity, Outcome - - And Equality," Working Papers 250027, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    43. Bebbington, Anthony, 1999. "Capitals and Capabilities: A Framework for Analyzing Peasant Viability, Rural Livelihoods and Poverty," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(12), pages 2021-2044, December.
    44. Weber, Olaf & Ahmad, Adnan, 2014. "Empowerment Through Microfinance: The Relation Between Loan Cycle and Level of Empowerment," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 75-87.
    45. Sen, Amartya, 1997. "Editorial: Human capital and human capability," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(12), pages 1959-1961, December.
    46. Deininger, Klaus & Liu, Yanyan, 2013. "Economic and Social Impacts of an Innovative Self-Help Group Model in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 149-163.
    47. Carinne Brody & Thomas de Hoop & Martina Vojtkova & Ruby Warnock & Megan Dunbar & Padmini Murthy & Shari L. Dworkin, 2015. "Economic Self‐Help group Programs for Improving Women's Empowerment: A Systematic Review," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 11(1), pages 1-182.
    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. Wandicleia Lopes Sousa & Thiago Almeida Vieira, 2022. "An Amazonian lake and the quality of life of its women: the case of Maicá, Santarém, Brazil (2018)," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 1428-1444, January.
    2. 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).
    3. Melinda Schmidt & Harald Strotmann & Jürgen Volkert, 2022. "Female and Male Community-Level Empowerment: Capability Approach-Based Findings for Rural India," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 34(2), pages 754-784, April.
    4. Advera Gibe ROCHE & John N. JECKONIAH & Fatihiya A. MASSAWE, 2023. "Gendered Factors And Small-Scale Fish Business Growth In Mwanza, Tanzania," Business Excellence and Management, Faculty of Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 13(2), pages 80-96, June.

    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. Paul Mark Mitchell & Tracy E. Roberts & Pelham M. Barton & Joanna Coast, 2017. "Applications of the Capability Approach in the Health Field: A Literature Review," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 133(1), pages 345-371, August.
    2. Paul Anand & Laurence S. J. Roope & Anthony J. Culyer & Ron Smith, 2020. "Disability and multidimensional quality of life: A capability approach to health status assessment," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(7), pages 748-765, July.
    3. Etienne Lwamba & Shannon Shisler & Will Ridlehoover & Meital Kupfer & Nkululeko Tshabalala & Promise Nduku & Laurenz Langer & Sean Grant & Ada Sonnenfeld & Daniela Anda & John Eyers & Birte Snilstveit, 2022. "Strengthening women's empowerment and gender equality in fragile contexts towards peaceful and inclusive societies: A systematic review and meta‐analysis," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(1), March.
    4. Siwach, Garima & Paul, Sohini & de Hoop, Thomas, 2022. "Economies of scale of large-scale international development interventions: Evidence from self-help groups in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    5. 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).
    6. Hareth Al‐Janabi, 2018. "Do capability and functioning differ? A study of U.K. survey responses," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(3), pages 465-479, March.
    7. Jean-Marie Baland & Timothée Demont & Rohini Somanathan, 2020. "Child Labor and Schooling Decisions among Self-Help Group Members in Rural India," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 69(1), pages 73-105.
    8. Deshpande, Ashwini & Khanna, Shantanu, 2021. "Can weak ties create social capital? Evidence from Self-Help Groups in rural India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    9. Arestoff, Florence & Djemai, Elodie, 2016. "Women’s Empowerment Across the Life Cycle and Generations: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 70-87.
    10. Giulia Greco & Paula Lorgelly & Inthira Yamabhai, 2016. "Outcomes in Economic Evaluations of Public Health Interventions in Low‐ and Middle‐Income Countries: Health, Capabilities and Subjective Wellbeing," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(S1), pages 83-94, February.
    11. Mara José Montenegro Guerra & Sandeep Mohapatra & Brent Swallow, 2019. "What influence do empowered women have? Land and the reality of women’s relative power in Peru," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 1225-1255, December.
    12. Meishan Jiang & Krishna P. Paudel & Fan Zou, 2020. "Do Microcredit Loans Do What They Are Intended To Do? A Case Study of the Credit Village Microcredit Programme in China," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(5), pages 763-792, July.
    13. Laszlo, Sonia & Grantham, Kate & Oskay, Ecem & Zhang, Tingting, 2020. "Grappling with the challenges of measuring women's economic empowerment in intrahousehold settings," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    14. Shivangi Bhatia & Seema Singh, 2019. "Empowering Women Through Financial Inclusion: A Study of Urban Slum," Vikalpa: The Journal for Decision Makers, , vol. 44(4), pages 182-197, December.
    15. Padmavathi Koride & Anjula Gurtoo, 2019. "A Comparison of Borrowing and Default Behaviour Between Men and Women," Studies in Microeconomics, , vol. 7(2), pages 189-209, December.
    16. Vandewalle, Lore, 2017. "The Role of Accountants in Indian Self-Help Groups: A Trade-off between Financial and Non-Financial Benefits," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 177-192.
    17. Maduekwe, E., 2018. "Women in Agriculture: Application of Alkire Foster Method of Counting Multidimensional Deprivation towards building a Human Recognition Index for Women in Malawi," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 276974, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    18. Singh, Nirvikar, 2018. "Financial Inclusion: Concepts, Issues and Policies for India," MPRA Paper 91047, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. O'Hara, Corey & Clement, Floriane, 2018. "Power as agency: A critical reflection on the measurement of women’s empowerment in the development sector," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 111-123.
    20. Desai, Raj M. & Olofsgård, Anders, 2019. "Can the poor organize? Public goods and self-help groups in rural India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 33-52.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    propensity score matching; sustainable development; capability measurement; self-help groups; poverty; Sen; female empowerment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • O35 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Social Innovation

    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:iza:izadps:dp12940. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.