Sajeda Amin

Does microcredit reach the poor and vulnerable? Evidence from northern Bangladesh

Subsidized loans have a history of being diverted to the rich. Yet recently microcredit programs, such as the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, have become popular among donors and governments as a way to channel funds to the poor. This paper uses a unique panel dataset from two Bangladeshi villages to test if the modern microcredit movement is different from its predecessors. Poverty is measured by levels of consumption. Vulnerability is measured as fluctuations in consumption associated with inefficient risk sharing. We find that subsidized credit is largely successful at reaching the poor and vulnerable. The probability that a microcredit member is below the poverty line is substantially higher than that of a randomly picked household in both villages. In the village where female headed households were found to be vulnerable, nearly half of the female headed households belonged to microcredit programs yet only a quarter of male headed households were microcredit members. While restricting loans to the landless is not effective in reaching the poor and vulnerable, targeting female headed households is.

Transition to Adulthood of Female Garment-factory Workers in Bangladesh

This article examines data from a study on garment-factory workers in Bangladesh to explore the implications of work for the early socialization of young women. For the first time, large numbers of young Bangladeshi women are being given an alternative to lives in which they move directly from childhood to adulthood through early marriage and childbearing. Employment creates a period of transition in contrast to the abrupt assumption of adult roles at very young ages that marriage and childbearing mandate. This longer transition creates a period of adolescence for young women working in the garment sector that is shown to have strong implications for the womens long-term reproductive health.

Immunization Uptake in Rural Bangladesh: A Multilevel Analysis

This study examines the effect of the immunization programme in four rural areas of Bangladesh. Using a multilevel discrete time hazards model, this paper identifies the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics which influence the uptake of immunization. However, even after controlling for these observed factors, a considerable amount of variation between households remains due to unobserved characteristics. There is also a large amount of geographical variation in the uptake of immunization with evidence of village level variation within intervention areas.

Spatial Variation in Contraceptive Use in Bangladesh: Looking Beyond the Borders

This article promotes a more complete understanding of social change by analyzing spatial patterns of contraceptive use in Bangladesh and the contiguous state of West Bengal in India. Multilevel analyses that control for variations in individual- and household-level correlates show an important role for cross-border influences only in those districts that share a common language across the border. The districts that are positive outliers in contraception hug the Bangladesh—West Bengal border. A map of outliers shows that the positive outliers form a contiguous band in a manner suggestive of a role for contagion.

Savings/credit group formation and change in contraception

We examine the characteristics of women who chose to join a women’s savings or credit group organized by Save the Children USA in a rural area of Bangladesh, and the impact of participation on contraceptive use. The data are taken from a panel survey conducted in 1993, shortly before the groups were formed, and in 1995 after interventions began. Our findings show that although demographic and socioeconomic characteristics have only a weak relationship to the decision to join a program, the treatment that a woman receives from her husband is associated with participation. We also find evidence that the credit program tends to attract women who are already using contraception. The analysis of program impact on the use of modern contraceptives reveals a positive effect of the credit program, after we adjust for this selectivity; we see no evidence of an effect of participation in a savings group.

School Incentive Programs and Children's Activities: The Case of Bangladesh.

Since the 1990s, governments of several developing countries have implemented conditional cash transfer programs to promote children’s school attendance. The best known programs are PROGRESA (Programa de Educación, Salud y Alimentación; now called Oportunidades) in Mexico, Bolsa Escola in Brazil, and Food-for-Education (FFE) in Bangladesh. In these types of programs, families receive a benefit that is conditional on their children’s school attendance. Their rationale is that children often leave school because their families are too poor to send them. The goals of incentive programs are to offset direct costs, such as books and fees, and to compensate families for the lost value of their children’s labor. Conditional transfers have generated excitement because they appear successful at increasing children’s school attainment. As development economist Nancy Birdsall commented, “these programs are as close as you can come to a magic bullet in development.” A growing literature documents the impact of these programs on school attendance as well as educational attainment. However, we know far less about the extent to which these programs concomitantly reduce child labor. This question frames the investigation we report here. Bangladesh was one of the first countries to implement school incentive

Women's Lives and Rapid Fertility Decline: Some Lessons From Bangladesh and Egypt

The recent experiences of Bangladesh and Egypt show thatfertility can sustain impressive declines even when womens lives remain severely constrained.Since the late 1970s, rural and urban areas in both countries have experienced steadydeclines in fertility, with recent declines in rural Bangladesh similar to those in ruralEgypt, despite lower levels of development and higher rates of poverty. This paperprovides an in-depth exploration of the demographic transition in these two societies andaddresses three basic questions: (1) have measurable improvements in economic opportunities forwomen been a factor in the fertility decline?; (2) can preexisting differences in gender systemsexplain the more rapid fertility decline in Bangladesh, despite the more modest economicachievements?; (3) can the development strategies adopted by the governments ofBangladesh and Egypt, be seen as additional factors in explaining the similar rural fertilitydeclines despite dissimilar economic circumstances? The paper concludes that neither gender systemsnor changes in womens opportunities appear to have contributed to declining fertility.Indeed, low levels of womens autonomy have posed no barrier to fertility decline in eithercountry. However, there is a case to be made that Bangladeshs distinct approach to development,with considerable emphasis on reaching the rural poor and women and a strong reliance onnongovernmental institutions, may have played a part in accelerating the transition in thatenvironment and in helping women to become more immediate beneficiaries of that process.

Microcredit and domestic violence in Bangladesh: an exploration of selection bias influences

This article explores the relationship between women’s participation in microcredit groups and domestic violence in Bangladesh. Several recent studies have raised concern about microcredit programs by reporting higher levels of violence among women who are members. These results, however, may be attributable to selection bias because members might differ from nonmembers in ways that make them more susceptible to violence to begin with. Using a sample of currently married women from the 2007 Bangladesh Demographic Health Survey (BDHS) (N = 4,195), we use propensity score matching (PSM) as a way of exploring selection bias in this relationship. Results suggest that the previously seen strong positive association between membership and violence does not hold when an appropriate comparison group, generated using PSM, is used in the analyses. Additional analyses also suggest that levels of violence do not differ significantly between members and nonmembers and instead could depend on context-specific factors related to poverty. Members for whom a match is not found report considerably higher levels of violence relative to nonmembers in the unmatched group. The background characteristics of members and nonmembers who do not match suggest that they are more likely to be younger and from relatively well-to-do households.

The Determinants of Reproductive Change in Bangladesh: Success in a Challenging Environment.

Demographic trends have taken many surprising forms over the last 30 years, but none have aroused such surprise, even incredulity, as recent events in Bangladesh. Although this country remains one of the poorest and least developed of all nations, there is mounting evidence of a steep decline in fertility. Fertility transition in such settings as China, Indonesia, and south India has already demonstrated that high material living standards are not a necessary precondition for a fall in birth rates. Yet in these cases alternative explanations were readily available; high levels of adult literacy in south India, for instance, and the prior creation of powerful nonfamilial welfare institutions in China. Bangladesh, in contrast, appears to possess no features that are conducive to fertility decline, except for a strong, persistent government commitment to reducing population growth. The aim of this volume are threefold. First, it documents with maximum precision the timing, magnitude, and nature of fertility change. Having established the demographic facts, the second aim is to assess alternative explanations. Of necessity, the explanatory net has to be widely cast because there are so many possible influences on human reproduction; nor is it desirable to cling to any specific theoretical position. The volume proceeds to review social and economic changes and their possible links to reduced demand or need for children. It focuses on shifts to consideration of the role of the family planning program in reducing fertility. Thirdly, its aim is to spell out the implications of the analysis for future population policy and programs.

Popular Perceptions of Emerging Influences on Mortality and Longevity in Bangladesh and West Bengal

Relatively little is known about how environmental and pathological threats to human survival and longevity are perceived by the public. In this study in rural Bangladesh and West Bengal, India, which used individual interviews and focus-group discussions to investigate the changing costs of and motivations for reproduction, respondents were questioned about their perceptions of changes in mortality. The findings show that, while child mortality levels are perceived to have fallen dramatically in recent times, the health and survival prospects of the middle aged and the elderly are seen to have been better in the past. The perceived decline in adult health is attributed to environmental deterioration and lifestyle changes accompanying modernization. This paper explores peoples reasons for this unexpected worldview. References to pesticides and chemical fertilizers as causes of death abound in their explanations and are seen to be associated with unhealthy agricultural practices and impiety.