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Highlights Our paper explores the link between women's self-help groups and public entitlements. It further examines the effect of SHG membership on social networks and mobility. Empirical strategy employs matching methods to correct endogeneity of SHG membership. Using data from rural India, we find that SHG members are more politically engaged. SHG members are more likely to know of certain public entitlements than non-members. SHG members are also more likely to avail of these public entitlement schemes. SHG members also have wider social networks and greater mobility than non-members.

Highlights We study the impacts of women’s Self-help group membership on women’s and men’s empowerment. We measure empowerment using two alternate indices: the A-WEAI and the Pro-WEAI. We find that SHG membership has a significant positive impact on aggregate measures of women’s empowerment. We also find that SHG membership reduces the gap between men’s and women’s empowerment scores. The impacts are driven by increase in control over income, decisionmaking over credit, and active involvement in groups.