Plainly speaking, improving the status of women has two effects. On the one hand there is a short term economic effect, since women seem to be better investors and bookkeepers than men – and there are many studies out there to prove it. Some examples of the many around are the following:
- Small loans to women in Bangladesh increase family income twice as much as similar loans to men (Source: "The Impact of Group-Based Credit Programs on Poor Households in Bangladesh: Does the Gender of Participants Matter," by Pitt and Khandker, 1998).
- Distributing farm inputs equally to women and men in Kenya would increase outputs by one-fifth (Source: "Gender, Growth and Poverty Reduction," by Blackden and Bhanu. World Bank, 1999.)
(For a good recent summary of empirical analyses of the role of gender equality and women's empowerment in reducing poverty and stimulating growth see "Gender equality, poverty and economic growth", by Morrison, Raju, and Sinha. World Bank, 2007)
Additionally, when women have a greater economic say, a bigger portion of the household budget will tend on average to be invested in children's well-being. Again, there is abundant empirical evidence supporting that increased female control over resources leads to better child development outcomes, including educational attainment and nutrition and thus reduced child mortality. For example:
- It is estimated that the mothers’ income has 20 times the marginal impact on child survival as the fathers’ income.
- Furthermore, female income’s effect on nutrition was found to be between four and eight times as large as male income’s effect (for more details of women’s effects on children wellbeing, check out the “Engendering Development - Through Gender Equality in Rights, Resources, and Voice” by the World Bank, 2001)
In this line, last October the World Bank launched a new initiative that really caught my attention: “The Adolescent Girls Initiative”. Adolescence can be quite a tricky time for the female population in emerging countries. They lie at the intersection of childhood and adulthood. By helping these young women to stay in school, and resisting early pregnancy and marriage, the program aims to break the cycle of poverty that condemns many of them to a future of economic irrelevance. An additional objective of the program is to stimulate the inclusion of women in the job sector.
The inclusion of women in the formal economy, thus allowing them to increase their incomes, seems to be an easy way of generating sustainable development, not only via business enterprises, but also through inter-generational development. Working mothers raise healthy and well-educated children: a double win-win, apparently. Thus, this looks like an ideal opportunity for sustainable business models in emerging countries.
What has the BoP business community done so far to improve the status of women in emerging countries so far? Unfortunately, not much. Many microfinance organizations loan exclusively to women (either individually or in groups) both as a way of reducing the risk of default (since women are more reliable debtors) and as a way of generating that social wealth that belongs to their mission. Outside the financial services sector, it seems that the BoP business community still has to wake up to the formidable opportunity that empowering women represent, such as through specially targeted educational programs (see article 1 and article 2) or training them to offer preventative health care to their own communities.
I would like to ask our readers here, do you know of any business model targeted to BoP women? What opportunities for businesses do you perceive in this arena? What additional risks may there be in targeting BoP women as collaborators, employees or customers of a particular product or service?
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I am currently involved with a social venture that addresses this very issue. I have the honour to work alongside the women of Source for Change (SFC). SFC creates IT-based jobs with women in rural India. For the past year, 10 courageous women have been working on data entry and digitization projects in the small town of Bagar in Jhunjhunu District of Rajasthan. Currently, we are seeking to employ 40 additional path-breaking women at this very center.
Our history is interesting. When this idea germinated the co-founders met with some resistance from the local community. Men and women both asked, “do you really think that women can learn how to use a computer?” Inspired to prove the nay-sayers wrong, 10 revolutionary women were recruited and trained on not just computers, but leadership capacity as well. The women went from being afraid of computers to handling them with ease and grace. Their skeptical families were originally critical, but soon became curious as to what had put the lightness in these women's steps.
The next step was to convince the rest of the world of the prowess of rural women. Our first project was through Pratham Rajasthan on their Annual Status of Education Report. The dynamic women of Source for Change implemented a rigorous data entry project to much critical acclaim. In fact, when Pratham compared data delivered from various sources, SFC's work came out to be of the highest quality. Pratham became the first client (and a repeat client at that!) of many to receive a high quality deliverable from the talented women of Source for Change.
Since then, we have begun our expansion efforts. We deliver high quality deliverables to global clients and provide a platform for women to empower themselves through our efforts. This last point is crucial as we cannot claim to empower the women: they are the revolutionaries, they create change, they empower themselves. We merely make it financially viable for them to do so.
SFC is a slightly different “BoP” business model in that we do not provide a service or good, but rather employment for the “BoP.” There is a huge capacity for this in general. Several rural companies operate in the IT sector as we do. To employ women exclusively is our differentiator. The benefits are both social and economic. There is a business case because we have found that women are more loyal to the company and are more detail-oriented. The social case is the same as that stated in Manuel's entry. The greatest risk in employing women is the limited working hours due to greater responsibilities at home. This just requires some creativity though. Instead of employing 25 women for eight hour shifts, SFC employs 50 women for four hour shifts.
Another question would be whether we truly impact the “bottom of the pyramid.” I wager that we do not consistently. Although our minimum entrance standards are 10th grade, many of the women have completed college. We are probably reaching the upper limits of the bottom of the pyramid. That said, in India, even the middle (and perhaps top) of the pyramid needs more gender equity. Also, the women do prove the facts above: they save their earnings and tend to focus their income on their children's well-being.
Like I said, I am pleased that this topic came up. I'd like to hear some more perspectives from throughout the globe.
Also, be sure to check out our website at: www.sourceforchange.in