The effects of microcredit on women’s control over household spending

This systematic review by Vaessen and colleagues focuses on the impact of microcredit interventions on one aspect of empowerment – increasing women’s control over household spending decisions – and the circumstances under which it occurs. Most of the included studies are on microcredit group schemes in South Asia. Authors found that there is no overall evidence for an effect of microcredit on women’s control over household spending. They also noted a gap between the optimistic belief in the capacity of microcredit to ameliorate the positon of women in decision-making processes within the household on the one hand and the empirical evidence base on the other one.