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What is the role of women in fostering development? Discuss the influence of gender on household expenditure, human capital investment and policy making.

A debate about sustainable development is not complete without a discussion on gender equality; throughout the world, women embody an ample underutilized source for promoting development. Since women account for roughly half of the worlds talent base, empowering their involvement in the workforce prominently enriches productivity and fosters economic growth. World Bank studies show that development strategies see much stronger economic growth when focusing on gender equality. The questions we must ask is how much of an impact can women have on development and how they can influence areas such as human capital investment and household expenditure. Research done by UNDP, UNIFEM, and the World Bank, among others, indicates that gender inequalities in developing societies inhibit economic growth and development. A recent World Bank report confirms that poverty is more prevalent, with lower living standards and slower economic growth in societies that discriminate women; clearly gender equality is a key factor towards any development strategyi. In a report on its survey findings the special unit of microfinance of the UNCDF has found that women spend more of their income than their male counterparts, therefore by helping to increase the income of women, we are in fact increasing the welfare of the whole family. Womens success benefits more than one person. Several institutions confirmed the welldocumented fact that women are more likely than men to spend their profits on household and family needs. Assisting women therefore generates a multiplier effect that enlarges the impact of the institutions activities.ii By observing this statement, we can assume that the empowerment of women and economic development go hand in hand; If we look at examples such as Bangladesh, womens share of earned income in 1998 was a meagre 23%iii, by giving women the opportunity to increase their potential earnings through projects such as microcredit, expectantly this can boost womens share of earned income and increase the spill over effect. Microfinance not only directly helps women attain credit and possibly increase their incomes, but could also perhaps rectify the problem of gender imbalance within developing countries, a problem which is especially common in India; a consensus showed that there was 100 women for every 108 meniv accentuates evidence of a decades-old Indian preference for male children, who are seen as breadwinners. low income households however may now not need to predominantly give birth to men for financial stability and wellbeing in the future. If microfinance rectifies the problem of gender imbalance then presumably in the long run there will be more females in the population (and as said before females donate a larger proportion of their income to their families) and the spill over effects should be multiplied to an even greater extent, leading to greater economic development. Studies have indicated that calorie intake and income have a positive relationship; surely one would think that if women spent an increased amount of their income on their families, then a fraction of this would go towards shortening the gap in calorie deficient diets. An improved diet can then affect the health status and cognitive ability of an individual. Health status, once obtained also effects school performance. It has been shown in studies that nutritionally stunted children in Nepal have a much lower probability of attending school than non-stunted children; furthermore another study in Brazil has shown that undernourished children were found to lag 20% in test score gainsv. Clearly nourishment i.e. getting enough calories is an intrinsic cog in the locomotive towards improving human capital, development and a substantial income in the future. We can also look at the Kwara State located in the North Central region of Nigeria; the average calorie consumption per day was 2428 kcal (based on a sample of 240 farming households), whereas the daily recommended was 2500vi; Kwara being amongst the six poorest states in Nigeria, reiterates the notion between calorie deficiencies and low incomes.

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Furthermore the abolishment of agricultural cooperatives in the mid-1980s in Senegal caused farmers to shift out of agriculture and into market based activities, thus not being able to offer credit to neighbours and kin. During the same period non-government organizations adopting a neoliberalist ideology created a number of microcredit platforms that target women as the principle recipients of cash loans to be invested in income generating activities. A significant number of these women however did not invest the funds into income generating activities but in fact lent the money at high interest rates to the farmers, emulating the practices of the elite farmers before the structural reforms and abolishment of cooperative agricultural practices. vii This initiative of female moneylending shows that women have a knack for enterprise and can not only see gaps but also form markets, all features that effectively help an economy develop and thrive. The profits to large money lending organisations would not be satisfactory to diversify into these areas; the idea of leaving it to the market to match up lenders to these initial borrowers (women) in the poorer echelons of society would not be very efficient therefore governments should intervene and target policies that help women attain capital and credit and perhaps more of this intuitive thinking would shine through society. Studies from around the developing world consistently show that expansion of basic education of girls earns amongst the very highest rates of return of any investment, much larger, for example than most public infrastructure projects. Dollar and Gattis study for the World Bank, Gender Inequality, Income and Growth: Are Good Times Good For Women? examined the effect o f girls education in 100 countries. It found: An exogenous increase in girls access to education creates a better environment for economic growth; the result is particularly strong for middle income countries. Thus, societies that prefer not to invest in girls pay a high price for it in terms of slower growth and reduced income. viii One estimate is that the global cost of failing to educate girls (equally compared to boys) is about $92 billion a year. The research suggests that, increasing the share of women with secondary education by one percentage point increases a countrys annual per capita income growth by an average of 0.3 percentage points.ix Certainly by making secondary education compulsory for women the benefits to society would be widespread. Education offers the chance to better utilize resources available and increase the productivity of present land for those from rural areas, not to mention managing household budgets more effectively. Unfortunately the increase of female independence may by opposed by men in traditional communities that see the position of women lesser than their own; despite recent improvements, the education of women is still too often seen as an unnecessary luxury in many male dominated societies.x Before women can help nurture development I believe that the psychological constraints restricting the potential of women must be lifted, once the ideology of equality has been reached in the minds of the populace, then woman can make the substantial impacts on society and development that have been seen in these case studies on a whole.

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REFERENCES
i

Empowering Women Through Microfinance Susy Cheston and Lisa Kuhn Page 7 http://www.microcreditsummit.org/papers/empowerment.pdf
ii

Empowering Women Through Microfinance Susy Cheston and Lisa Kuhn Page 8 http://www.microcreditsummit.org/papers/empowerment.pdf
iii

Human development report indicators 1998 Proximate sources of population sex imbalance in India May 2009, Volume 46, Issue 2 Page 325
iv v

Todaro and Smith Textbook Chapter 8 Raphael Olanrewaju Babatunde, Adedeji Olusayo Adejobi, Segun Bamidele Fakayode Journal of Agricultural Science Vol. 2, No. 2, June 2010 Income and Calorie Intake among Farming Households in Rural Nigeria: Results of Parametric and Nonparametric Analysis

vi

vii

Donna Perry, Human Organization, Society for Applied Anthropology, Volume 61, Number 1 / Spring 2002, Microcredit and Women Moneylenders: The Shifting Terrain of Credit in Rural Senegal
viii

Dollar & Gatti (1999) Gender Equality, Income and Growth: Are good times good for women? World Bank Policy Research Report on Gender and Development, Working Paper Series No. 1. Washington DC.
ix

Children in focus http://www.gbchealth.org/system/documents/category_1/320/The%20Economic%20Cost%20of%20Failing%2 0to%20Educate%20Girls.pdf?1344866507

x

Children in focus http://www.gbchealth.org/system/documents/category_1/320/The%20Economic%20Cost%20of%20Failing%2 0to%20Educate%20Girls.pdf?1344866507