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

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...