This paper evaluates a program targeted to adolescent girls in Tanzania that aims to empower them economically as well as socially. The program was found to be highly successful in Uganda in terms of economic, health, and social outcomes. In contrast, this evaluation finds that the program did...

Improving women's agency, namely their ability to define goals and act on them, is crucial for advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women. Yet, existing frameworks for women's agency measurement -- both disorganized and partial -- provide a fragmented understanding of the constraints...

This paper examines the relationship between caste and gender inequality in three states in India. When households are grouped using conventional, government-defined categories of caste the paper finds patterns that are consistent with existing literature: lower-caste women are more likely to...

The concept of empowerment is now widely used in several disciplines to characterize the states and social processes of individuals and communities. In economic development, the concept has come to mean women's power and agency in all economic domains and market-related interactions -- earning,...

In democracies, innovative political institutions have opened up scope for direct public participation often in the form of talk: citizens talking to the state and mutual talk among citizens on matters concerning community development. A prominent example is the Indian gram sabha, or village...

The recent decline in India?s rural female labor force participation is generally attributed to higher rural incomes in a patriarchal society. Together with the growing share of the urban population, where female participation rates are lower, this alleged income effect does not bode well for...

Self-help groups (SHGs) are the most common form of microfinance in India. The authors provide evidence that SHGs, composed of women only, undertake collective actions for the provision of public goods within village communities. Using a theoretical model, this paper shows that an elected...

This paper studies how self-help groups?village-based organizations designed to encourage savings, household production and social cohesion among the poor?can promote economic and social capital. The paper uses survey data and a wide array of social capital measures to assess the impact of a...

This paper studies how self-help groups?village-based organizations designed to encourage savings, household production and social cohesion among the poor?can promote economic and social capital. The paper uses survey data and a wide array of social capital measures to assess the impact of a...

A review of rigorous evaluations of interventions that seek to empower women economically shows that the same class of interventions has significantly different outcomes depending on the client. Capital alone, as a small cash loan or grant, is not sufficient to grow women-owned subsistence-level...