Chandralekha Ghosh

What Factors Play a Role in Empowering Women? A Study of SHG Members from India:

Abstract Self-employment holds the key to continuity of employment. Self-employed members of self-help groups (SHGs) fare better than their wage-earning counterparts when it comes to continuity of employment. These were some of the findings of a study based on two rounds of primary surveys—one in 2005 and the other in 2009—of the same set of SHG members from the North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal in India. The study dwelt on the factors influencing the different indicators of women empowerment among the members of 26 matured all-woman SHGs. It also isolated the socioeconomic demographic factors influencing the joint probability of a group member being both empowered and employed. The study concluded that training significantly influences various dimensions of empowerment, and the trained group members are more likely to be both empowered as well as employed.

Efficiency and Mission Drift—Debate Revisited in Indian Context

The twin objectives of MFIs are to serve the poorest clients and to become financially self-reliant. It is difficult for the MFIs across the nations to maintain the balance between the social mission of serving the poor and marginalised section such as women and the goal of achieving financial sustainability. To achieve the financial sustainability, MFIs focus on the efficiency indicators and neglect their social mission of serving the poor clients. This phenomenon is known as ‘mission drift.’ In this paper, we have analyzed the technical efficiencies and cost efficiencies of microfinance institutions in Indian context using stochastic frontier analysis in order to get an idea about mission drift mainly by studying the relationship of efficiencies with respect to the percentage of woman borrowers and the average size of the loan. In the literature on mission drift of MFIs, it is ascertained that an increase in loan size could be an indicator of mission drift. We have obtained efficiencies of 86 Indian MFIs for the period 2010–2014. In this study, it is observed that if the loan size increases, both technical and cost efficiency are increased which is a case of mission drift as large loan size is an indicator of targeting on poor clients. Technical efficiency is positively related to the regulation dummy. Both the efficiencies are positively related to age as well as the asset of the MFIs. It implies that experienced MFIs and MFIs who own the assets achieve both the efficiencies. This finding along with the increase in loan size establishes the fact that MFIs who are gaining efficiency in terms of operation are diverting their objective of serving poor clients. We can conclude that efficiency and mission drift are positively correlated in Indian microfinance sector.

Does Political Identity Matter in Rural Borrowing? Evidence from a Field Survey

This study is based on a primary survey conducted over two consecutive years in two villages in the North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, India. West Bengal has the unique feature of being under a single coalition government for the last 30 years. In this context, we examine the effect of different socioeconomic, political and demographic borrower characteristics on the probability of taking a loan from formal sources and the size of such loans taken. We find that political identity significantly affects the borrowers’ access to the formal loan market. Other factors that are significant in characterising the formal borrowers are occupational categories, landholding and religious status.