Transcript Document 7261414

BANGLADESH: Empowerment impacts of
Social Safety Net Programs on women
Gil Yaron
World Bank Consultant
PREM, World Bank, September 2008
Why measure empowerment?
• The WDR 2000/1 identified “empowerment” as
an important development objective
• “Empowerment” is closely linked to other
corporate agendas of “social accountability,” and
the “demand for good governance”
• Empowerment enhances people’s choices and
opportunities
• While a legitimate goal in and of itself, evidence
suggests that empowerment improves poverty
reduction outcomes
Bangladesh - motivation
The Bangladesh PRSP emphasises the:
– Role of Social Safety Net Programs (SSNP) in reducing poverty
– Need to focus on the empowerment of women
One SSNP (VGD) explicitly aims to enhance the income-earning
capacity and self-reliance of ultra-poor and food-insecure women,
government officials identify women’s empowerment as an “additional
objective” of another program (PESP). Other SSNP that provide food or
income for ultra poor women may well have an impact on their
empowerment
The substantial literature on women’s empowerment in Bangladesh
does not treat SSNP in detail
It was possible to explore this issue by adding TFESSD funds to an
existing JSDF-funded survey of SSNP being implemented by the
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics
Bangladesh - context
The aim of the survey was to measure the
empowerment impacts on women of the
following SSNP:
1. Food-for-work (FFW)
2. Vulnerable Group Development (VGD)
3. Primary Education Stipend program (PESP)
4. Vulnerable Group Feeding (VGF)
5. Old Age Allowance Scheme
6. Allowance for Widowed, Deserted, and
Destitute Women
7. Allowance for Distressed Disabled Persons
Operationalizing empowerment
• Empowerment: the interaction of agency and
opportunity structure
• Agency can be measured through proxies -- the
material, financial, social, human, informational,
psychological and other assets that people
deploy to achieve their goals
• Opportunity structure: the formal and informal
institutions (“rules of the game”) that constrain or
facilitate people’s ability to exercise agency
Bangladesh – methodology overview
FGD (72)
SSI analysis
Household
Survey (2741)
Beneficiaries: ordered logit
All: Propensity score matching
Women’s
Survey (2741)
Community
Survey (69)
Bangladesh – Empowerment indicators 1
Women’s questionnaire:
• Control over assets (husband, self, joint, others)
• Participation in village meetings and elections (&
if not, why not)
• Participation in household decision making (h, s,
j, o) including joining organisations, economics
& child related
• Autonomy (visiting & purchases) & domestic
violence
Bangladesh – Empowerment indicators 2
Household questionnaire empowerment module e.g.
Programs make:
no difference | a small difference | a big difference |
a negative difference
Being able to resolve disputes
Membership of any local groups e.g. clubs or samitties
Being able to choose who you vote for in elections
Being able to complain to government officials
Participating in development projects
Being able to get clean water
Access to news and information
Being able to choose what work you do
Keeping children in school
Bangladesh – PSM methodology
Unobserved
determination &
social capital
Observable
proxies on
information &
attending
beneficiary
meetings +
factors affecting
“lobbying”
Standard PSM approach
SSNP
Empowerment
Biased
results
Our PSM approach
SSNP
Empowerment
Unbiased
results
PSM implementation
PSM implementation followed standard practice:
1. Estimating the propensity score for each SSNP
2. Running balancing tests using STATA PSCORE
3. Matching using NN (with replacement, 3 closest
matches, imposing common support & trimming
2% of observations)
4. Checking significant results with LLR matching
5. NN matches have hetroskedastic-consistent S.E
6. LLR matches have boostrapped S.E.
Methodology – empowerment
We distinguish asset-based agency (such as
improved self-esteem) from actual empowerment
outcomes (such as greater autonomy or more
decision making in the household)
Agency
Iterative
relationship
Degree of
empowerment
Opportunity
structure
Source: Alsop, Bertelsen and Holland (2006)
Development
outcomes
Other methodological issues
We distinguish between: female-headed households
in which the female heads are formally widowed,
separated, divorced or abandoned; and those
where women run the household without describing
themselves in these terms
Need to rule out the effect of multiple SSNP (not
meant to happen but 3% of the sample dropped)
Bangladesh – findings 1
1. SSNP modestly contribute to women’s economic
empowerment
2. FFW appears to have less economic impact
than do other programs
3. SSNP have a bigger impact on keeping children
in school than on access to credit, land, water or
electricity
4. Old Age/other allowances pay for education of
children within the extended family & PESP is
used in other areas -- e.g. allowances are
fungible
5. PESP is popular but could be better targeted
Bangladesh – findings 2
1. FGDs in particular show that SSNP do enhance selfworth and self-esteem, and increase women’s access
to information.
2. But -- increased self-esteem and access to information
did not translate into empowerment as measured by
observable changes in behaviour. Behavior change
depends on changes in the norms governing
acceptable female behaviour. Should husbands be
part of VGD capacity building?
3. Expansion of the Food-for-Work and Money-for-Work
schemes was the most frequently voiced request from
FGDs, although these programs have the least
economic impact. How to design better workfare
programs?
Bangladesh – findings 3
SSNP had little effect on women’s social or civic
empowerment (i.e. on autonomy, involvement in
household decision-making and incidence of domestic
violence).
Old Age Allowances and VGD may actually result in
negative impacts, perhaps because increasing women’s
economic assets triggers a conservative backlash from
poor and poorly educated husbands. Further in-depth
qualitative analysis is needed on this issue.
Findings 4
1. The combination of FGD and quantitative survey
techniques worked well. Ideally, the questionnaire
design would have built on earlier FGDs
2. The Empowerment Framework conception of
empowerment as the outcome of asset-based agency
interacting with institution-based opportunity structure is
useful.
3. It is important to focus on de facto female headed
households, not only those which identify themselves
as “widowed, separated, divorced and abandoned”.