Women's participation in microfinance: Effects on Women's agency, exposure to partner violence, and mental health.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

The health and social effects of women's microfinance participation remain debated.

Methods

Using propensity-score methods, we assessed effects of microfinance participation on novel measures of agency; intimate partner violence (IPV) exposure; and depressive symptoms in 930 wives in Matlab, Bangladesh interviewed 11/2018-01/2019.

Results

Participants, versus non-participants, were married younger (16.7 vs. 17.4 years), more often Muslim (90.7% vs. 86.2%), less schooled (5.4 vs. 6.8 grades), and more often had husbands (27.0% vs. 19.6%) and mothers (63.2% vs. 50.5%) without schooling. Participants and non-participants had similar unadjusted mean scores for prior-week depressive symptoms, prior-year IPV, and intrinsic attitudinal agency (gender-equitable att

SUBMITTER: Yount KM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7962741 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature