Gendered Impact of Microcredit in Mali: An Evaluation by Propensity Score Matching

Abstract

During the last 30 years, the microfi nance industry has developed and spread around the world. Along with its development, there has been an increased focus on analyzing its impact on the wellbeing of the benefi ciaries. In Mali, microfi nance started in the 1980s, and recent successive governments were particularly interested in it as a tool for fi ghting against poverty and gender inequality. Th erefore, the implementation of microfi nance programs in this country took into account the situations of gender inequality as an important consideration.Th e gender position in the microfi nance literature fundamentally postulates the particularity of women who are viewed (as clients) as being more able to achieve high-quality performance in terms of loan repayment compared with men ( Yunus, 1997 ), and at the same time they use microfi nance services more eff ectively for household-welfare-related purposes ( Khandker, 1998( Khandker, , 2003. In this paper, we look at the gender question from the angle of impact on poverty. Our objective is to rigorously verify if the potential eff ects of microcredit on poverty reduction are of more signifi cance for female than for male benefi ciaries. Th e data set we are using comes from surveys conducted in 2007-2008 in Mali. Th is data set is of high importance because it includes gendered information on the use of microcredit, in addition to covering a large sample that compares 2400 microfinance client households among which around 70% are microcredit benefi ciaries. Since the collected data is not randomized, in order to conduct a statistically valid comparison between microcredit benefi ciaries and non-benefi ciaries, we use the statistical method of propensity score matching (PSM), which we will discuss in detail.Females benefi t in the long term while males benefi t in the short term.Only males benefi t signifi cantly in the rural areas.Our results indicate a negative, though non-signifi cant, impact of microfi nance on male benefi ciaries in urban areas.1 JEL classifi cation codes: C2, D63, G21, I32, J16. M icrofi nance in M ali has a positive impact on poverty alleviation in total and higher on female than on male benefi ciaries.

The Effectiveness of Micro-credit Programmes Focusing on Household Income, Expenditure and Savings: Evidence From Bangladesh

“…In particular, the empirical results of this study reveal that the household income, expenditures and savings increased by 1.15 percent, 1.13 percent, and 1.25 percent respectively per year. The findings of this study are similar to the studies that found a positive impact of microfinance on household income and expenditures (Hossain, 2012b;Rahman and Khan, 2013;Koloma and Alia, 2014;Attanasio et al, 2015;and Banerjee et al, 2015). It is worth noting that microfinancing is being provided to the poor who are unable to provide collateral and/or do not have access to commercial banks.…”

“…Some studies have concluded that access to microfinance positively influences the poor, while others have expressed scepticism about the contribution of microfinance to the socio-economic development of the poor. For example, several recent studies claimed that microfinance has a significant positive impact on poverty reduction (see Biosca, Lenton, and Mosely, 2014;Koloma and Alia, 2014;Attanasio et al, 2015;Banerjee et al, 2015). On the other hand, some studies found no impact of microfinance on household income and expenditures (see Duvendack and Palmer-Jones, 2012;Augsberg et al, 2015, Angelucci, Karlan andZinman, 2015).…”

Bottlenecks to Financial Development, Financial Inclusion, and Microfinance: A Case Study of Mauritania

“…Some research indicates that household size does not impact access to credit (Amendola et al 2017;Khoi et al 2013). However, other research indicates that there may be some relationship with household size but not to the number of children in the household (Koloma and Alia 2014).…”

Impact of financial literacy models on the financial behavior of individuals: An empirical study on the Indian context

“…Income probably influences the behavioral variables and gaps in the behavior of the two groups positively. Gender plays an important role in realizing the benefits of microfinance (Koloma & Alia, 2014). A gender dummy variable is used, which takes a value equal to one of the individual is male, it takes the value zero if female.…”