| By: |
Anand, Paul;
Saxena, Swati;
Gonzalez, Rolando;
Dang, Hai-Anh H. |
| Abstract: |
This paper investigates a women’s self-help group program with more than 1.5
million participants in one of the poorest rural areas of Northern India. The
program has four streams of activity in micro-savings, agricultural enterprise
training, health and nutrition education, and political participation. The
paper considers whether there is any evidence that program membership is
associated with quality of life improvement. Using new data on a variety of
self-reported capability indicators from members and non-members, the paper
estimates propensity score matching models and reports evidence of differences
in some dimensions as well as significant benefits to those from the most
disadvantaged groups—scheduled castes and tribes. The paper considers
robustness and concludes that for some dimensions, there is evidence that the
program has contributed to sustainable development through improvements in the
quality of life. |
| Keywords: |
capabilities,self-help groups,sustainable development,propensity score matching |
| JEL: |
I31 I32 |
| Date: |
2019 |
| URL: |
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:402&r=all |