Gender and Microfinance
? In reality microfinance is all about banking for women.
? Pioneers of Microfinance Institutes such as BancoSol (Bolivia) and the Grameen Bank (Bangladesh) were built around serving women.
? Recent study found that women make up 80 percent of the clients of the thirty-four largest microlenders (Mody 2000).
? In 1983 when Grameen Bank was initiated it had ==? only 44% of Women Clients, but by reaching 2001 ==? 95% of Grameen’s Clients were Women.
? Similar trend fallowed world wide.
? While considering above issues it is rightly said that microfinance is all about banking for women.
Three Main Reasons why Microfinance is for Women’s?
1. Women had better repayment records, while monitoring and supervision of women is easy
2. Women as microfinance customers extended to other dimensions of performance Like; Khandker (2003) finds that a;
? 100 percent increase in the volume of borrowing by a woman.
? Would lead to a 5 percent increase in per capita household nonfood expenditure
? 1 percent increase in per capita household food expenditure,
? While a 100 percent increase in borrowing by men.
? Would lead to just a 2 percent increase in nonfood expenditure.
? And negligible change in food expenditure.
? Thus, evidence shows that serving women turns out to have stronger impacts on households.
3. Microfinance also helps in achieving social goals (social transformations) Data on fertility rates ...