A
significant empirical literature on women’s say in the household focuses on the
effects of microcredit, but there is little evidence on the relative roles of
access to credit and education. Using household survey data from Bangladesh,
this paper provides a comparative analysis of the effects of education and
credit on women’s decision-making power in the household with regard to their
own and children’s health, large purchases, and geographic mobility. In the
absence of credible exclusion restrictions, the paper implements Oster’s (2019)
bias-adjusted OLS estimator, which extends Altonji et al.’s (2005) approach in
which “selection on observables” serves as a guide to “selection on
unobservables.” In addition, it uses a doubly robust radius matching estimator
due to Lechner et al. (2011). The evidence suggests a limited impact of credit
on the decision-making power of women, and this is consistent with the recent
evidence from RCT-based studies in other developing countries. In contrast,
education is much more important for enhancing women’s say in a range of
household decisions. There is no significant interaction effect between
education and credit. Evidence from Gelbach’s (2016) decomposition suggests
that outside employment is an important mediating mechanism, but household
wealth and assortative marriage matching on education are not important. The
impact of education on women’s decision-making remains strong even after
controlling for these mediating factors, pointing to the importance of other
mechanisms, such as self-confidence and better negotiation skills of educated
women.
Keywords
Women’s Empowerment,
Women’s Autonomy, Household Decision Making, Women’s Education, Women’s Access
to Credit, Complementarity, Bangladesh, Bias-Adjusted OLS Estimator, Doubly
Robust Estimator
JEL
Classification Code
J16, I24, O12, O16
Recommended
Citation
Bouldier, B. L., Emran, M. S., & Hoque, N. (2022). Access to credit, education, and women’s say in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Development Studies, 45(3/4), 35-71.