Gender and microcredit in Sub-Saharan Africa: The case of Mozambican smallholder households

Abstract

Among countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Mozambique ranks among the highest with respect to gender inequality. As genderized access to microcredit can be a driver of gender inequality in general, this paper considers how gender conditions access to microcredit and macrocredit in Mozambique. With diary data on financial activities among individuals in Mozambican smallholder households, we estimate the quantile treatment effect of being a woman on the receipt of microcredit. Methodologically, our quantile treatment framework enables an analysis of loan size based upon the actual size distribution of monetary loans among smallholder households in Mozambique. Parameter estimates reveal that being a woman in Mozambique has a positive treatment effect on two types of informal loans in the top quantiles of the loan size distribution. This suggests that in Mozambique, to the extent that loans in the top quantiles are made to entereprenuers, microcredit can potentially catalyse gender-inclusive economic growth and development.