Changes in intra-household decision-making powers: Effects of a gender transformative approach in saving groups in the Barotse Floodplain, Zambia

Abstract

Microfinance models have expanded over the past decades to include savings groups to assist people who lack access to more formal financial services to save, borrow, and earn interest on their investments. Development organizations have incorporated savings group methodologies into their programming, often as a means of empowering women in low-income settings. Studies have shown that women’s participation in savings groups does not necessarily translate into women’s increased control of how to use loans or the money accumulated through saving, thus calling into question whether savings groups truly empower women economically. This paper presents a study on a pilot that integrated a gender transformative approach into a savings group methodology in Zambia. Savings group members invited their spouses to sessions during group meetings to reflect and identify actions to address the gender barriers that constrain women’s agency and other empowerment outcomes. Results show that there was a significant change over the course of the pilot in decision-making powers on the use of savings by women and men involved in the sessions. The results provide support to a small but growing body of evidence for the integration of gender transformative approaches into savings group methodologies to economically empower women more effectively.