Can the vicious cycle of gender inequality, poverty and malnutrition be broken through microfinancing of…

Question

Can the vicious cycle of gender inequality, poverty and malnutrition be broken through microfinancing of women SHGs? Explain with examples.

Ghissu Editorial · Accepted Answer

Microfinancing women's SHGs can weaken the cycle of gender inequality, poverty and malnutrition by putting income and voice in women's hands, but credit alone cannot break it without convergence with nutrition and health services. Kudumbashree's Amrutham Nutrimix units and Bihar's Jeevika show how.

**Introduction**

NFHS-5 (2019-21) recorded 57% of women aged 15-49 as anaemic and 35.5% of children under five as stunted. Women's low status limits their income and food, an undernourished mother bears a weak child, and the loop repeats; SHG microfinance aims to cut its first link.

**How Women's SHG Microfinance Breaks the Cycle**

SKETCH: flow-cycle | The Vicious Cycle
- Gender inequality
- Low female income
- Poor maternal diet
- Low birth weight
- Stunted child
- Low adult earnings

1. **Income in women's hands**: Money women control goes more to children; Esther Duflo's 2003 South African pensions study found girls grew better when grandmothers received the pension.
2. **Nutrition enterprises**: Kudumbashree units make Amrutham Nutrimix for Kerala's anganwadis, and Madhya Pradesh's SHG federations run take-home-ration plants.
3. **Groups as health platforms**: Bihar's Jeevika uses SHG meetings to promote breastfeeding and hygiene, and its Didi ki Rasoi canteens feed hospital patients.

**Why Microfinance Alone Is Not Enough**

1. **Credit is not food**: The 2015 Hyderabad evaluation by Banerjee, Duflo and co-authors found no average health gain from microcredit alone.
2. **Proxy borrowing**: When husbands control the loan, women bear the debt without a say over food spending.
3. **Over-indebtedness**: Multiple loans, as in the 2010 Andhra Pradesh crisis, can force families to cut food to meet repayments.
4. **Other causes**: Sanitation, health care and early marriage also drive stunting and need convergence with POSHAN Abhiyaan, ICDS and NFSA.

**Conclusion**

SHG microfinance can weaken the cycle where it puts income and voice in women's hands and links them to nutrition services, but credit alone cannot break it. Converged with POSHAN 2.0, it advances SDG 2 and SDG 5 together.

Can the vicious cycle of gender inequality, poverty and malnutrition be broken through microfinancing of women SHGs? Explain with examples.

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