Implementación de Soluciones

This study was done in one of the typical rural societies in the Northeastern region of Bangladesh that comprises a significant portion of the population mired in chronic poverty. By categorizing loan-borrowing poor rural women into three groups such as the-lower income group, the middle-income group, and the higher-income group, the average monthly income was calculated on the basis of the household’s income contributed by any able-bodied person in the family. From the survey data it is found that around 36% of households has an average monthly income of about tk. 7719 (around $100, here $1 is equal about 77 Bangladeshi Taka), while 44% of households has an average monthly income of Tk.15430 (about $200), whereas only about 20% of households has an average monthly income of Tk. 29739 (approximately $ 386). The monthly income of the middle income groups is double than that of the lower income groups, whereas the income of the higher income groups is almost two times of the middle

18 _{According to NGO officials, they target the poorest of the poor women as their program participants, but in} reality the fact is otherwise in the sense that they prefer poor women who most likely possess the financial capability to repay the loan within the stipulated time. For the convenience of realizing the effects of credit on the life patterns of the poor women I have categorized them into different income groups.

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income groups and about fourfold of the lower income groups. The information regarding the family income of the respondents was based only on the total family income contributed by all income-generating members of the households including women; although female members of the family typically do not have any direct financial contributions to the household income as compared to the other male members of the family.

The following chart19 _{(Figure 3) presents the educational status of poor women in the study}

areas. The survey data indicates that slight more than half are only able to place their signarure, and possess some accounting knowledge that they learnt from NGO staffs, which in many cases is mandatory for every women in order to collect and deposit money. Around 38% of women have completed primary education, while a negligible portion of them (around 6%) has finished their secondary level of education. Few women have a secondary education to their credit, and an equally insignificant percent of respondents have completed an undergraduate-level of studies. This is generally indicative of the overall educational scenario of Bangladeshi poor women in rural areas.

The pie chart20 _{(Figure 4) provides the information about the main occupational configuration}

of the respondent women in rural Bangladesh in which the study was done. The occupational configuration more or less corresponds to the typical type of work done by the “female section” of society.

19 _{Source: Adapted from field interview data.} 20 _{Source: Adapted from field interview data.}

52% 38% 6% 2% 2% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% Education of respondents 87% 2%6% 5% Occupation of respondents

Housewife Handicraft Teacher Others

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The survey data indicates that around 87% of women were homemakers21 while only a small portion of them were engaged in making handicrafts amounting to about 2%. Around 6% of women were school teachers, which is an exception to this category because it was found that some primary school teachers were involved in borrowing loans from Grameen Bank that does not represent the general picture of poor women’s occupational structure in rural Bangladesh. The teachers were not the inhabitants of the village; they live in city and come to the village school to teach.

The average length of women’s involvement in microcredit programs was about two years. Around 58% of women were involved in the microcredit programs of either Grameen Bank or BRAC for more than two years, 24% for well over seven years. And 10% were involved in these programs for more than twelve years, while this figure was about 4% for those clients who received loans from NGOs for well over seventeen years. The same proportion (4%) had been involved for more than twenty-two years.

Bangladesh is a densely populated country with about 1, 222 people living in per square kilometre (WB, 2015), while the number of people living in per square kilometer in Sylhet Sadar Upazila is 1, 528 (BPD, 2015).

22_{The histogram reflected in Figure 5}

reflects the averagne family size of the respondents. According to the Bangladesh Population and Housing Census, the average family size in Bangladesh is 4.4 (BBS, 2011a) and the same in Sylhet Sadar Upazila is 5.68 (BBS, 2011b), while in the study area the average household size has been calculated to be around 6.5, which is much higher than the national average. Perhaps the main reason for the larger household size might be due to the social and economic structure of rural society. In the rural areas in Bangladesh poor women tend to prefer sons, thus contributing to the increase of the

21 _{Women feel comfortable designating themselves as housewives. In rural society large sections of women are} engaged solely in household activities; only in very rare cases do they have secondary occupations. I also found a small percentage of women who made handicrafts, but this was found to be a secondary occupation.

22 _{Source: Adapted from field survey data.}

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family size. It should be noted that preference for sons is a more or less common demographic preference of the people among all sections of population in the country. However, rural people still consider the son as the most important asset for the family from the perspective of economic and food insecurity.

In the context of Bangladesh, boys are more valued than girls in terms of their contributions to the household both in tangible and intangible ways. Moreover, when girls reach puberty they are married off to another family and leave their parents’ home to live permanently in their husbands’ abode, while boys remain in the parent’s family home even after marriage. Getting a daughter married off is both a financial burdensome and an onerous duty for parents since marriage costs a lot in the form of transactions, dowry, hospitality management, and giving gifts to the groom’s relatives. In some cases it also happens that parents have to pay dowry money to the daughters’ husbands on different occasions and under various pretexts. As a result, poor women prefer to have son, deeming daughter a burden for the family. On the other hand, boys are treated as the most important contributor and asset to the family. This kind of judgmental perspective sheds lights on the subjective dimension of poverty of the rural poor. Women consider sons as a potential income-generating person in the family that contributes to gathering food and as providing necessary support to meet the basic needs of family members. Girls are not expected to fulfill this role due to their socially-insecure status and vulnerability compared to boys. Thus women suffer insecurity in the domains of income, food, and other items essential for maintaining life. In rural Bangladesh male children are valued more than female children (Islam, 1983), and sons in this regard are perceived as economic assets for special consideration (Mizan, 1994). Bangladeshi parents have indeed tended to show a strong and sustained preference for sons (Fraser, 2010).