Beyond Loans: Empowering Women Through Tailored Support

Abstract

We examine the impact of an anti-poverty program which complements credit with tailored support, on empowerment of female beneficiaries in Bangladesh. This intervention uniquely targets the sandwiched segment of poor households that are often excluded from traditional microfinance and grant-based support. Utilising two years of panel data from a randomised intervention by BRAC, we estimate the program’s average intent-to-treat effects using a difference-in-differences approach with inverse probability attrition weights to address potential selective attrition. Our findings, based on multidimensional metrics, indicate notable shifts in both sole and joint influence of women beneficiaries on household financial decisions related to savings, land transactions, and asset purchases. Women’s influence on decisions related to children’s well-being and essential household expenditures also increased. The program further strengthened women’s social capital, improved their legal awareness, reduced intimate partner violence and enhanced confidence in competitive environments. Our study highlights the importance of customised support as complementary to the extension of credit in bringing not only immediate empowering benefits, but generating positive outcomes that can sustain the long-term upliftment of female beneficiaries.