Financial access and women's role in household decisions: Empirical evidence from India's National Rural Livelihoods project

Abstract

Government programs supporting self help groups (SHGs) generally target women on the assumption that doing so enhances women's decision-making. The empirical evidence, however, is mixed. We advance and test one explanation: the loan amounts offered by most SHGs may be too small to impact women. Our analysis is based on SHGs developed under India's National Rural Livelihoods Mission, a program that supported both small loans from internal savings and larger loans through Community Investment Funds (CIFs). Exploiting variation in their phasing and amount, we document a large effect of CIFs on women's decision-making and on intra-household allocations.