scholarly journals regulating motherhood through markets: Filipino women’s engagement with microcredit

2021 ◽  
Vol 129 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-47
Author(s):  
Sharmila Parmanand

The Philippines is a global leader in deploying microcredit to address poverty. These programmes are usually directed at women. Research on these programmes focuses on traditional economic indicators such as loan repayment rates but neglects impacts on women’s agency and well-being, or their position in the household and relationships with their partners and children. It is taken for granted that access to microcredit leads to enhanced gender freedoms. In line with the growing body of work in feminist scholarship that critiques the instrumentalist logic of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in relation to women, this research foregrounds stories from interviews with female borrowers in Zamboanga City in Southern Philippines to provide grounded illustrations of how microcredit is reshaping relationships between women and their families, women and poverty and women and the state. Borrowers used loans to meet their family’s needs even at the cost of harassment from creditors, indebtedness, increased workloads and conflict with partners. These narratives challenge the dominant neoliberal discourse of female empowerment through access to credit by exposing how microcredit is part of a complex set of regulations around ‘good motherhood’ and consumption, where women’s moral worth is based on their willingness and ability to lift their families out of poverty.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Niaz Asadullah ◽  
Nudrat Faria Shreya ◽  
Zaki Wahhaj

Although microfinance started as a movement to improve women’s economic well-being through increased female entrepreneurship in particular, its impact on women’s attitudes toward and participation in the labour market is not fully understood. We fill this gap by combining data on branch locations of the major microfinance institutions in Bangladesh with household survey data and implement a spatial regression discontinuity design. Our estimates suggest significant effects of access to credit on women’s work; attitudes towards gender, social and employment norms; and psychosocial well-being. Access to credit increases labour force participation in terms of paid employment and traditional economic participation. Relatedly, respondents are more likely to be prevented from working by their husbands or other household members. They are also more likely to express traditional beliefs in relation to gender, social, and employment norms. Finally, access to credit leads to a loss in life satisfaction, financial satisfaction, health satisfaction, and overall happiness.


2022 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 169
Author(s):  
Darius E. Montaño ◽  
Jabin J. Deguma ◽  
Melona C. Deguma ◽  
Reylan G. Capuno ◽  
Ricardo Q. Ybañez ◽  
...  

This article contributes to the emerging literature on gender studies, in general, and on the LGBTQ+ phenomenon, in particular. While the global society recognizes the rights of the third sex, other countries are reluctantly acknowledging while inadvertently stigmatizing LGBTQ+ individuals. Unfortunately, some Filipino same-sex couples were still the target of ridicule, criticism, and prejudice. In this paper, we analyzed via a biographical narrative the relationship dynamics of same-sex Filipino couples confronted with homophobia, heteronormativity, and discrimination. Biographical narratives established an excellent way of making theoretical sense of social phenomena such as gender studies. To do this, we interviewed same-sex couples from the provinces of Western Visayas, Philippines. The results revealed interdisciplinary perspectives that reflected the basis for engaging and maintaining such a relationship. A recurring essence across all identified perspectives that compelled same-sex couples to stay in a relationship was their mutual love. Mutual love becomes a strong driving force that keeps the relationship between same-sex couples all the more substantial while facing heterosexual society's disapprobation. The concepts of love and friendship, by extension, genuine same-sex relationship, when properly understood, can go beyond the border of human instinctual tendencies. Such impartial manifestation of love can extend across cultural differences and eventually build crossroads as avenues of sharing what one has without counting the cost. We recommend the need to further the campaign against homophobic views, albeit providing counseling intervention and psycho-education that help improve the psychological well-being of same-sex couples.   Received: 16 August 2021 / Accepted: 16 November 2021 / Published: 3 January 2022


Author(s):  
Vitaly Lobas ◽  
◽  
Elena Petryaeva ◽  

The article deals with modern mechanisms for managing social protection of the population by the state and the private sector. From the point of view of forms of state regulation of the sphere of social protection, system indicators usually include the state and dynamics of growth in the standard of living of the population, material goods, services and social guarantees for the poorly provided segments of the population. The main indicator among the above is the state of the consumer market, as one of the main factors in the development of the state. Priority areas of public administration with the use of various forms of social security have been identified. It should be emphasized that, despite the legislative conflicts that exist today in Ukraine, mandatory indexation of the cost of living is established, which is associated with inflation. Various scientists note that although the definition of the cost of living index has a well-established methodology, there are quite a lot of regional features in the structure of consumption. All this is due to restrictions that are included in the consumer basket of goods and different levels of socio-economic development of regions. The analysis of the establishment and periodic review of the minimum consumer budgets of the subsistence minimum and wages of the working population and the need to form state insurance funds for unforeseen circumstances is carried out. Considering in this context the levers of state management of social guarantees of the population, we drew attention to the crisis periods that are associated with the market transformation of the regional economy. In these conditions, there is a need to develop and implement new mechanisms and clusters in the system of socio-economic relations. The components of the mechanisms ofstate regulation ofsocial guarantees of the population are proposed. The deepening of market relations in the process of reforming the system of social protection of the population should be aimed at social well-being.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma L Bradshaw ◽  
Cody R. DeHaan ◽  
Philip Parker ◽  
Randall Curren ◽  
Jasper Duineveld ◽  
...  

We integrate Rawls’ (1971/2009, 1993, 2001) concept of primary goods with self-determination theory (SDT; Ryan & Deci, 2017), to examine the link between people’s perceptions of primary goods (i.e., views of society as just and fair), basic psychological need satisfaction, and well-being. In Study 1 (N=762, countries = Australia, the United States, South Africa, India, and the Philippines) and Study 2 (N=1479, groups = ethnic minority, sexual minority, political group, religious group), we used partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to assess associations between perceptions of primary goods and wellness, and the intermediary role of basic psychological needs. Perceptions of primary goods linked positively to well-being (average effect size = 0.48), and negatively to ill-being (average effect size = -0.46). These associations were strongly mediated by basic psychological needs (average percentage mediated: 53% Study 1 and 68% Study 2). Results signify the importance of primary goods’ perceptions to wellness.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deogratius Joseph Mhella

Prior to the advent of mobile money, the banking sector in most of the developing countries excluded certain segments of the population. The excluded populations were deemed as a risk to the banking sector. The banking sector did not work with cash stripped and the financially disenfranchised people. Financial exclusion persisted to incredibly higher levels. Those excluded did not have: bank accounts, savings in financial institutions, access to credit, loan and insurance services. The advent of mobile money moderated the very factors of financial exclusion that the banks failed to resolve. This paper explains how mobile money moderates the factors of financial exclusion that the banks and microfinance institutions have always failed to moderate. The paper seeks to answer the following research question: 'How has mobile money moderated the factors of financial exclusion that other financial institutions failed to resolve between 1960 and 2008? Tanzania has been chosen as a case study to show how mobile has succeeded in moderating financial exclusion in the period after 2008.


BMJ Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. e034986 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Valdebenito ◽  
Aja Murray ◽  
Claire Hughes ◽  
Adriana Băban ◽  
Asvini D Fernando ◽  
...  

IntroductionViolence against children is a health, human rights and social problem affecting approximately half of the world’s children. Its effects begin at prenatal stages with long-lasting impacts on later health and well-being. The Evidence for Better Lives Study (EBLS) aims to produce high-quality longitudinal data from cities in eight low- and middle-income countries—Ghana, Jamaica, Pakistan, the Philippines, Romania, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Vietnam—to support effective intervention to reduce violence against children. EBLS-Foundational Research (EBLS-FR) tests critical aspects of the planned EBLS, including participant recruitment and retention, data collection and analysis. Alongside epidemiological estimates of levels and predictors of exposure to violence and adversity during pregnancy, we plan to explore mechanisms that may link exposure to violence to mothers’ biological stress markers and subjective well-being.Methods and analysesEBLS-FR is a short longitudinal study with a sample of 1200 pregnant women. Data are collected during the last trimester of pregnancy and 2 to 6 months after birth. The questionnaire for participating women has been translated into nine languages. Measures obtained from mothers will include, among others, mental and physical health, attitudes to corporal punishment, adverse childhood experiences, prenatal intimate partner violence, substance use and social/community support. Hair and dry blood spot samples are collected from the pregnant women to measure stress markers. To explore research participation among fathers, EBLS-FR is recruiting 300 fathers in the Philippines and Sri Lanka.Ethics and disseminationThe study received ethical approvals at all recruiting sites and universities in the project. Results will be disseminated through journal publications, conferences and seminar presentations involving local communities, health services and other stakeholders. Findings from this work will help to adjust the subsequent stages of the EBLS project.


2016 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick J. Rosopa ◽  
Jesus Alfonso D. Datu ◽  
Stephen A. Robertson ◽  
Theresa P. Atkinson

2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 409-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna P Durnová ◽  
Eva M Hejzlarová

In public policy scholarship on policy design, emotions are still treated as opposed to goals, and their presence is assumed to signal that things have gone wrong. We argue, however, that understanding how and for whom emotions matter is vital to the dynamics of policy designs because emotions are central to the capacity building of policy intermediaries and, with that, to the success of public policies. We examine the case of Czech single mothers in their role as intermediaries in ‘alimony policy’. Our interpretive survey provided single mothers an opportunity to express the way they experience the policy emotionally. The analysis reveals that the policy goal of the child’s well-being is produced at the cost of the mother’s emotional tensions and that policy designs defuse these emotional tensions, implicitly. These contradictory emotions expressed by mothers show us a gateway to problematising policy designs in a novel way, which reconsiders construing policy design as a technical, solution-oriented enterprise to one in which emotional tensions intervene in policy design and are essential for succeeding.


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