Women and repayment in Philippine microfinance: tthe gender and dependence effects
Date
2019-12-20
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Abstract
This paper analyzes the relationships among client gender, institutional
conditions, and microfinance institution (MFI) repayment performance using a firm-level
dataset covering 123 MFIs in the Philippines during the period 1999-2018. The results
indicate that a larger percentage of female borrowers is not associated with lower
portfolio-at-risk and lower write-offs in Philippine MFIs. These findings confirm our
hypothesis that having more female borrowers in the Philippines does not have a
significant effect on microfinance repayment performance. This is in line with the
literature on the dependence effect** which states that the gender effect* on repayment
is only significant in situations where women are economically disadvantaged and are
dependent on microfinance, which is not the case in the Philippines. We observe more
significant correlations between MFI financials and repayment performance—this
indicates that operational efficiency is a significant factor for MFI sustainability in the
Philippines.
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Keywords
gender, gender effect, dependence effect, MEDICINE::Surgery::Obstetrics and women's diseases, Philippines, microfinance