Women's Access to Microcredit and Children's Food Security in Rural Malawi

Abstract

Abstract Using data from the 1995 Malawi Financial Markets and Food Security Survey, this study seeks to discover if rural Malawian women's relative control over household resources or intra-household bargaining power, gauged by their access to microcredit, plays a role in young children's food security. Access to microcredit is assessed in a novel way as self-reported credit limits at microcredit organizations. Since credit limits, that is, the maximum sums that might be borrowed, hinge upon supply-side factors such as the availability of credit programs and the financial resources of lenders, it is plausible they are more exogenous than demand driven loan uptake or participation in microcredit organizations, the common ways of gauging access to microcredit. It is found that household expenditure on food significantly increases in women's, though not in men's, access to microcredit. Thus, increasing rural Malawian women's relative control over household resources may yield children greater food security. It is also found that women's access to microcredit improves 0–6 year old girls', though not boys', long-term nutrition. Thus, empowering these women may deliver more benefit to girls than boys.