Credit to Capabilities
A Sociological Study of Microcredit Groups in India

This book focuses on how group-based microcredit programs in India facilitate women's empowerment through the mechanism of group participation and networking.

Paromita Sanyal (Author)

9781107077676, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 December 2014

336 pages, 15 b/w illus. 1 map 15 tables
23.1 x 15 x 2.3 cm, 0.57 kg

'Credit to Capabilities is a major contribution to our understanding of the social impact of microcredit on the ability of women to gain autonomy in various spheres of their lives. This qualitative study adds considerable nuances to existing analyses on the topic by parsing out who benefits, when, how much, and how. Sanyal's book is of broad sociological significance as a model for approaching agency and social change. A must-read for students of gender, development, economic sociology, family, deliberation, and much more.' Michele Lamont, Director, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University

Credit to Capabilities focuses on the controversial topic of microcredit's impact on women's empowerment and, especially, on the neglected question of how microcredit transforms women's agency. Based on interviews with hundreds of economically and socially vulnerable women from peasant households, this book highlights the role of the associational mechanism - forming women into groups that are embedded in a vast network and providing the opportunity for face-to-face participation in group meetings - in improving women's capabilities. This book reveals the role of microcredit groups in fostering women's social capital, particularly their capacity of organizing collective action for public goods and for protecting women's welfare. It argues that, in the Indian context, microcredit groups are becoming increasingly important in rural civil societies. Throughout, the book maintains an analytical distinction between married women in male-headed households and women in female-headed households in discussing the potentials and the limitations of microcredit's social and economic impacts.

1. The global trajectory of microcredit
2. Agency
3. Converting loans into leverage
4. The power of participation
5. Microcredit and collective action
6. Culture and microcredit: why socio-religious dimensions matter
7. Loans and well-being
8. Interpreting microcredit: beyond the salvation/exploitation alternatives
9. Epilogue: the future of microcredit.

Subject Areas: Business studies: general [KJB], Sociology & anthropology [JH], Social groups [JFS], Social issues & processes [JFF], Cultural studies [JFC], Society & culture: general [JF]