7 - The Power of Autonomy from the Household and Women’s Collective Action

Summary

Chapter 7 provides cause for optimism: women’s participation in apolitical women’s groups enhances their political agency and doubles their political participation. Leveraging a natural experiment to identify the impact of access to SHGs, or small women-only credit collectives, it shows that access spaces outside of the household with other women generates solidaristic collective action oriented toward women’s political participation that succeeds in changing women’s political behavior: SHG members were significantly and substantially more likely to participate in politics than nonmembers. Further, this impact is evident in the larger village political network; women are more densely politically connected, and gender emerges as a more salient political cleavage. This positive impact of SHGs occurs despite no change in women’s economic resources.