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the research looks at the lending
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practices of global microfinance
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organizations microfinance organizations
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are small financial institutions that
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make loans to poor people in the
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developing world
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the idea behind these organizations is
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that by extending financial products to
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poor people you can actually help them
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disrupt cycles of poverty so lots of
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people are really really excited about
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these organizations and in particular
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because they lend to women at a high
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rate and this is important because women
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tend to be poor both around the world
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and within every country they're in so
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the research that I'm doing here starts
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to look at the relationship between
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patriarchy and the lending practices of
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these microfinance organizations and
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what we do in the paper is start to look
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at different ways that patriarchy
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manifests in a society and how it
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effects these practices in some
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counterintuitive ways so the baseline
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finding is that when you have a high
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level of patriarchy in the stage in
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religion in the professions and in the
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family so really suppressing women that
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makes it harder for microfinance
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organizations to lend to them for a
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number of different reasons mostly due
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to a difficulty in attracting resources
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so it's tough to attract money tough to
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attract actually female customers and it
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can also be tough to attract female
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employees through actually the people
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who had make and monitor the loans now
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what's interesting is we see some
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countries where patriarchy is stronger
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in some sectors than others so you see
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women being particularly disadvantaged
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in religion in the family but they have
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a more equal influence a greater
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presence in government and in the
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professions and what we see in these
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countries is we actually see the
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greatest outreach to women and it seems
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to be that this contrast between high
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levels of gender and equality in some
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sectors and lower in others actually
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creates awareness of women's issues and
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a motivation to do something about them
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so we see lots more local funding
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support for these microfinance
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organizations we also see many more
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women employees in these organizations
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as well as women loan officers and this
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appears to be driving the effect of
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higher levels of lending to women
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so the key takeaways from this are one
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that if you're in the microfinance
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industry it's not enough to pay
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attention just to economic factors we
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have a lot of research that looks at the
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business environment and the quality of
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internal practices and microfinance
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organizations and how this affects their
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operations in their outreach but I think
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what this research really shows is that
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if you're not taking into account things
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like patriarchy and other sources of
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inequality in a society you're really
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missing half of the picture and
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particularly in these countries where
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there's either high levels of gender
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inequality across sectors or low levels
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where it actually seems to mask
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inequality in some ways you need to do
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different things to actually ensure
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you're getting the outreach that you
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want
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so when patriarchy is high across the
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board probably important for these
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organizations to start looking at
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foreign sources of funding because the
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local support just isn't there now on
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the flip side in countries that are more
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equal across the board the research
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really implies that you know there's
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probably a need for some awareness and
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some outreach efforts to actually
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educate people that women's issues and
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women's poverty is still important to
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address now in addition to that there's
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a broader implication in terms of
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thinking about the cultural environment
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of business and social outreach so the
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research that's out there right now
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tends to focus on cultural or
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institutional pressures as things that
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lead business to do good in society and
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the rationale is the business is profit
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seeking it's instrumental and it would
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not do good things if it were not for
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external pressures with people saying we
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will reward you for doing this or punish
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you if you don't now what we show in
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this paper is that's part of the story
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sure but if you really want to
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understand social outreach of
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organizations like microfinance or
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theoretically any kind of organization
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you need to understand the sources of
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the problem that is trying to address so
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if it's trying to address poverty you
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need to understand where poverty comes
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from if it's trying to address women's
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issues you need to understand how these
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are rooted in society and the different
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ways that this pushes back against the
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efforts that actually do good in the
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world
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so the most surprising thing for us when
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we started to look at this data was the
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observation of countries that have this
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more mixed profile of gender inequality
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the assumption in the literature to date
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has been that gender inequality is
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pervasive in society and it is to a
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certain extent but this has led to an
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empirical strategy where people are
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measuring patriarchy with a single
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measure or an index measure and the
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assumption is you know the stronger page
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the patriarchy is in society the greater
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effect that's gonna have so when we
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started to decompose this and look at
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different indicators and see how they
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didn't always cluster together this was
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really surprising it's a different way
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of modeling gender inequality in a
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society and we were surprised not only
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to see it in existence but also to see
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the kinds of effects that drove in terms
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of the local support for microfinance so
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I mean by far the most surprising thing
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about the paper
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so I think an interesting story in the
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news that's relevant to this research is
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the the new government in Canada so the
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Liberal Party came in after 12 years of
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conservative rule and Prime Minister
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Trudeau he has decided that half of his
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cabinet ministers are gonna be women now
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I personally think this is a great thing
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but it initiated a lot of pushback a lot
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of consternation of people saying well
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we need to just have the most qualified
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people and this is discrimination
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against men and this really gets it one
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of the things in the paper which is when
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you have a society that is more
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egalitarian at least ostensibly even
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though women are so systematically
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disadvantaged in these countries I mean
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including Canada which you know you
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think of Canada this great progressive
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place but women still are more likely to
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be poor and more likely to live in
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extreme poverty but it gets masked and
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so you get this pushback when someone
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like Trudeau comes in and says you know
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we need to have more women represented
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in our cabinet with people thinking well
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wait no this is discriminating against
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men when an actual fact you know women
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still are disadvantaged so this is
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something that we were picking up at our
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paper as well as it relates the
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microfinance and I think the example of
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the Canadian government nicely
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illustrates how it applies in something
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and even as contemporary as you know
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Canadian democracy
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so I think one misperception this might
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dispel is you can understand gender
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inequality as a single thing so the
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common perception is that gender
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inequality ranges from strong to weak in
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a society and we really start to unpack
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that and show that it's not always the
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case and that when you start to get into
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this deeper level of analysis you can
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actually see some things work and that
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wouldn't be apparent otherwise in
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addition to that and you know consistent
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with my last answer you know I think
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that we really show that you know it's
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not enough to just assume that because a
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marginalized group has made advances in
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society that there aren't still
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marginalized in deeper more fundamental
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ways so you know even in Canada women
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are still poor even the United States
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Sweden you know in this perception that
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you know just because there's been
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advances doesn't mean there's still not
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work to do you know I think we nicely
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push back against that and show no you
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know there is stuff you need to do and
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you know especially in microfinance in
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the developing world there is a big need
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even in ostensibly more egalitarian
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societies and if we're not paying
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attention to this we're really missing
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one of the fundamental things that
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microfinance er any other similar
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poverty reduction intervention is trying
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to accomplish
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so one of the things that really sets a
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study apart from existing research
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that's been done is it's the first
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that's looked at the influence of
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patriarchy on the lending practices of
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these organizations research to date at
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least the big large-scale empirical
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research has tended to use an economic
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or finance perspective and they look at
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all sorts of great things and they drive
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all sorts of important insight but it
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misses this cultural dimension and so by
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bringing this to the table we're giving
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a richer picture of the environment
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these organizations work in and some of
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the contextual features that affect the
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prospects or their success or failure as
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it relates the social outreach now in
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addition to that our study as it relates
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to gender inequality goes well beyond
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what's been done so far so instead of
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looking at gender inequality with a
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single variable
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we're decomposing it into multiple
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measures and showing that when you do
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this one you get a more fine-grained
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understand you know some of the
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mechanisms that are driving the effects
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that we're interested in but also you
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see things that wouldn't be apparent at
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all with a single indicator so all of
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the stuff about this contrast between
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high levels of gender equality in some
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parts of society and lower in others you
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know this is really the action in our
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paper it's really what drives the effect
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and if you looked at it the way that
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people have been so far and studies of
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gender and gender inequality you'd miss
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this entirely
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we plan to follow up on this by looking
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at different dimensions of outreach by
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microfinance as well as some different
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forms of poverty and how these work in
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similar or different ways to gender
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inequality and what this means for the
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actual internal operations of these
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microfinance organizations so we've
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started to expand the analysis beyond
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just gender inequality to look at other
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institutionalized forms of inequality in
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poverty in society so things based on
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religious ethnic linguistic
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fractionalization and what this does the
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outreach of these organizations and
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we're also starting to look at how the
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nature of poverty be it rooted in gender
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or other forms of systematic
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discrimination affect the balance
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between social outreach and financial
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performance of these microfinance
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organizations and what's interesting is
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we're starting to see that the level at
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which the social and the financial
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performance has become compatible versus
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pulling apart from each other has really
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systematically affected not only by the
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quality of market institutions in a
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country but also the nature of poverty
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so in poverty is categorical so it's
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based in gender other forms of
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categorical inequality the transaction
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costs are higher for these organizations
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in terms of the outreach that they're
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doing and this makes it much more
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expensive to try and address poverty and
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really starts to tweak the level at
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which you can do sustainable outreach so
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that's where it's going be interesting
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to see you know what comes next after
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that
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you
