Brief on: Women’s Empowerment through Microcredit
Overview. In the name of empowering women, the world of financial and developmental organizations have combined efforts, reaching over 100 million of the poorest women on the planet in the last 12 years with microcredit, according to the Microcredit Summit Campaign.
This research project seeks to understand whether the impact of microcredit is developmental in both:
- the economic realm, as observed in the external manifestation of individuals (she has more capital and disposable income)
- the social-psychological realm, as observed in the internal manifestations of the individual (women participants) and the collective (their families and communities).
This developmental focus explores whether a woman’s ability to sustain a specific economic level of development is a reflection of her internal level of development. The microcredit project seeks to sustainably shift their level of development. This project would demonstrate that:
- microcredit can have a broader impact than just economic
- internal development is as integral dimension of what is happening in successful projects
- understanding impact of microcredit on the interior state of women might lead modifications in the microcredit programs
Motivating Observation. When visiting microcredit projects in Guatemala, we asked whether the projects were successfully empowering women. We were told that the default rate on the microloans was much lower than commercial loans – thus a great financial instrument! But did it empower the women? While in one community, they said it did, because divorce rates were down (she was able to stabilize the family), in the next community they say it did because divorce rates were up (she wasn’t putting up with his abuse, and since the assets were in her name, she divorced him). While they might both be right, further questioning within the area, then at the country level, then at the regional level, then at the global level, led us to observe that maybe nobody was really assessing whether this massive effort was being effective or not. Nonetheless, this movement has reached half of the poorest women on the planet in the last 12 years and now plans to double that amount in the next decade. This seems like a ripe opportunity for asking whether microcredit is empowering these women or not.
Hypotheses. This research project questions whether the relative reduction of poverty leads to more mindfulness, happiness, and general quality of life, as well as what it means to be more empowered, as a woman.
Current assessment of the impact of microcredit on women’s empowerment follows the stimulus-response paradigm, observing the behaviors of women who received microcredit. This research suggests that to answer the empowerment question requires assessing the interior state of empowerment. This suggests the importance of shifting from the stimulus-response paradigm of microcredit impacting the behavior of women to the stimulus-organism-response paradigm that considers the influence on and of her interior state. The project starts with the following hypotheses:
- H1. Poverty reduction, through microcredit to women, positively impacts social-psychological dimensions of the individual women and their families and communities.
- H2. Social-psychological dimensions of the individual women positively impact social-psychological dimensions of their families and communities.
- H3. Trait mindfulness will moderate the impact of poverty reduction on social-psychological impacts.
- H4. Perceived empowerment is positively correlated with Carol Gilligan’s stages of increasing community compassion-embrace-agape
- H5. Higher levels of empowerment lead to stronger impact of microcredit interventions.
- H6. A woman’s age/hormonal levels (estrogen, progesterone, testosterone) are positively correlated with her trait mindfulness, as suggested in The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine.
Next Steps. To clarify the lens through which one can easily assess a woman’s level of empowerment, at any given point in time, and her change in empowerment, we will first convene a group of women with specific expertise around these hypotheses, then develop and test an assessment instrument. Once this is tested, then it will be pilot tested in Guatemala with the Mayan women who motivated this work.
- Initial Clarity Forum. A group of women, who have deep experience in their own development and the development of other women in their profession, will be convened to see how they collectively might envision and design the measurement instrument.
- Participants: Shawn Bohen, Peri Chickering, Susanne Cook-Greuter, Helen-Ann Ireland, Rebecca Koeniger-Donohue, Mary Day Mordecai, Kate Parrot, Luz Maria Puente, Anne Starr, Jim Ritchie-Dunham.
- Meeting. November 26, 2007 1:30-5:00pm at Harvard Faculty Club.
- Future Participants. Subsequent to the initial Clarity Forum, the following women will be integrated into the project:
- Participants: Kimberly King, Sandy Hessler, Leslie Ritchie-Dunham, Isia Boltz
- Test Measurement Instrument. The measurement instrumentwill be tested: (1) initially with US women and men, to see if the instrument distinguishes women and men; (2) with women at CARE; and (3) with one village.
- Review with CARE.
Contributors. The following organizations have expressed support of this research project.
- The CARE LAC, Microfinancing Project will provide the test sites, interviewers, translators, and funding.
- The Mindfulness Lab at Harvard University, Psychology Department, will provide design and analytical capacities.
- The Institute for Strategic Clarity, Social Systems Intelligence Research Program provides the leadership, convening of Clarity Forums, and assessment of the whole project.
- Future sites: Life Bank (Philippines), Microcredit Summit Campaign (global)
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