The Oliver Twists among women microcredit borrowers, intra-household decision making and power play in male dominant households in Ghana

Abstract

The thrust of this study was to investigate the factors that motivate women microcredit borrowers in the Upper East Region of Ghana to take multiple loans from microfinance institutions. The study employed the double hurdle estimation method and the data was collected from 500 women engaged in agro-processing of whom 250 were beneficiaries of multiple loans and 250 non-beneficiaries.

The results showed that the set of factors that impacted the decision to borrow are among the factors that impacted the decision to go for multiple loans from microfinance institutions though the directions of the impact were found to be different for the two decisions. Thus, the number of people in household and number of friends with loans have positive impact on the decision to borrow; however, these variables have negative impact on the decision to go for multiple loans. It was also found that women who relinquished their loans to their spouses and women who took permission from their spouses before they could borrow had less multiple loans.  Again, respondents who were living below the poverty line (poor) had less multiple loans than their counterparts who were not poor.

The conclusion drawn is that, intra-household decision making and power play in male dominant households prevent women from taking multiple loans no matter how beneficial these loans may be for the women and their households. In view of this, it is recommended that gender mainstreaming should be included in the services of microfinance institutions to encourage women participation in household decision making. Again microfinance institutions should devote a percentage of their loan portfolio to targeting the poor.

Keywords: Oliver Twists, Women, microcredit, power-play, double-hurdle and Ghana