Microcredit Groups and Women's Social Capital: Why Socio-religious Composition Matters

• In Event: 115 - Regular Session. Development and Gender: Paradoxes, Unanticipated Effects

Abstract

There is slowly accumulating evidence that microcredit programs, the most popular development intervention today, helps cultivate social capital among women enrolled in these usually group-based credit & savings programs. In this paper, I have identified mechanisms linking the religious composition of microcredit groups with its women members' development of social capital of the kind required for achieving welfare-enhancing public goods. The analysis is based on qualitative data on real-life cases of collective action and sanctioning (to protect women) undertaken by microcredit groups of Hindu and Muslim composition in India. The findings shine a spotlight on the emergent inequality in social capital among Hindu and Muslim women despite being enrolled in the same development intervention. This paper makes important contributions to the field of ‘development and gender’ and to understanding the emergent changes in civil society in developing countries such as India as a result of particular development interventions such as microcredit programs.

Authors

• Paromita Sanyal, Cornell University

• Umang Prabhakar, Cornell University