Arming Women With Credit

Evidence suggests there is a structural issue, on a global scale, that affects women's ability to access credit to the same degree as men and that this imbalance in credit availability has costs for welfare, national and global economic growth. Much research comments on the effect on women from financial empowerment (of which access to credit is one facet) - this paper seeks to consider the issue from an economic perspective, rather than a social one, predominantly by focusing on the impact of less credit availability on women's entrepreneurial abilities. In Section I, I indicate some of the ways that women, face structural barriers to attaining credit. In Section II, I consider the impact of this lack of access on economic growth, giving indication of the channels by which we miss out on the growth premium of women's lack of access. In Section III, I offer a variety of motivations for policymakers to make this a priority - ranging from the impact on national health and living standards to the impact on productivity in agriculture and alleviating hunger and famine. Section IV focuses on the preconditions of resolving the problem of gender discrimination in credit provision, be they legal or cultural requirements to enable women to access credit. Section V concludes and summarises the main findings.