Microcredit Program Evaluations and Women’s Empowerment in South Asia and Southeast Asia: A Systematic Review Open Access
Bhandari, Manu Simriti (Spring 2022)
Abstract
Microcredit has been hailed as a revolutionary pathway to empower women in the most disadvantaged settings. Despite its continued popularity and growth, there has been much debate on whether it truly empowers women. This systematic review takes a step back from this debate to understand the contents of the evaluations that reach these mixed conclusions. The focus of this review is South Asia and Southeast Asia. A total of 23 articles were included. This review aims to identify indicators used to measure women’s empowerment and understand the study design and context under which the evaluations were conducted. This review concludes with a discussion on the implications for policy and practice of microcredit programs, and recommendations for the direction of future research.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2
Microcredit 2
Development and Organization of Microcredit 3
Impacts of Microcredit Schemes 5
Microcredit in South Asia and Southeast Asia 7
Evaluating Microcredit Schemes 8
Impact of Microcredit 8
Women’s Empowerment 11
Purpose Statement14
CHAPTER 4 RESULTS 20
Aim 1: What is the impact of microcredit on women’s empowerment?20
Aim 2: Understand the study and the context under which evaluations took place 28
CHAPTER 5 DISCUSSION 30
Recommendations 30
Limitations 31
Conclusions and Implications for Future Research, Practice, and Policy 32
REFERENCES 33
APPENDIX A ARTICLES INCLUDED IN THE SYSTEMATIC REVIEW 36
APPENDIX B SUMMARY DATA EXTRACTION TABLE 38
APPENDIX C COMPLETE DATA EXTRACTION TABLE 41
APPENDIX D CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 76
TABLES 3
TABLE 1: DIFFERENT TYPES OF CREDIT LENDING MODEL 3
TABLE 2: HOW TO MEASURE THE PERFORMANCE OF MICROCREDIT PROGRAMS 9
TABLE 3: DEFINITIONS OF WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT AND INDICATORS13
TABLE 4: LITERATURE SEARCH TERMS 19
TABLE 5: STUDIES FINDING POSITIVE IMPACT ON WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT 22
FIGURES 17
FIGURE 1: COUNTRIES INCLUDED IN REVIEW 17
FIGURE 2: INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION CRITERIA 17
FIGURE 3: FLOW DIAGRAM ILLUSTRATING ARTICLE REVIEW PROCESS 19
FIGURE 4: DATA EXTRACTION TABLE EXAMPLE 20
FIGURE 5: EXAMPLE OF WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT INDICATORS OVERLAP 27
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