Meta-analysis of the impact of microcredit on women’s control over household decisions: methodological issues and substantive findings

Abstract

Systematic reviews and meta-analysis have risen in popularity in international development to provide evidence on 'what works'. This paper reports the findings of a meta-analysis to assess the impact of microcredit on women's control over household spending to illustrate the challenges of conducting meta-analysis in the case of a diverse evidence base. We provide an assessment of methodological quality and present the findings of a meta-analysis. The results suggest that the effect sizes are small. Furthermore, the confidence that we can place in these findings is limited by the high level of heterogeneity within and between studies and the general reliance on nonexperimental studies and statistical analyses which are not reported in sufficient detail to enable confident judgement as to their robustness.

A relational perspective on women’s empowerment: Intimate partner violence and empowerment among women entrepreneurs in Vietnam

“…We assessed intra‐household decision‐making with a standardized scale (household decision‐making index; Mizan, ), which is a commonly used proxy to assess women’s empowerment (for a review see Duvendack et al , ). We selected 11 suitable items to assess who usually takes specific financial decisions within the household.…”

“…To date, women’s empowerment has been predominantly investigated by assessing women’s personal agency (e.g., Alvarez, van Leeuwen, Montenegro‐Montenegro, & van Vugt, ) or their perceived influence over financial decision‐making within the household (for overviews, see Duvendack, Palmer‐Jones, & Vaessen, ; Huis, Hansen, Otten, & Lensink, ). Previous research mainly studied women as individual agents and did not consider the social relationships they are embedded in.…”

“…To study signs of women’s empowerment, we focus on decision‐making within households. These decisions most commonly involve both spouses (Duvendack et al , ). In the current study, we, therefore, focus on women’s close relationship, which can entail both interdependence and competition (Glick & Fiske, ).…”

“…Women’s empowerment has been operationalized with very different indicators to assess this broad concept. A recent literature review offers a framework to categorize the diverse measures of women’s empowerment in three distinct but related dimensions (Huis et al , ) ranging from (1) personal empowerment such as self‐esteem (e.g., Kato & Kratzer, ), and (2) empowerment in relation to others, such as financial intra‐household decision‐making (e.g., Duvendack et al , ), and (3) societal empowerment (e.g., representation of women in parliament).…”

“…Women’s close relationship may be the most defining social relationship in which women are embedded and which impacts on women’s empowerment (e.g., Belcher, Peckuonis, & Deforge, ). To date, research in the field of microfinance services has mainly studied intra‐household decision‐making power as an indicator of relational empowerment (Duvendack et al , ). This scale assesses the extent to which women have a say in financial investments across different domains.…”