O54 - Economywide Country Studies: Latin America; CaribbeanReturn

This paper investigates the possible reasons why many microfi nance institutions (MFIs) have gradually experienced a decrease in the share of female borrowers in their portfolios over the last few years. We confi rm that the share of women may be decreasing due to the growing proportion of low-income inhabitants in the area and unpaid family workers. Our results further show that the share of women is also strongly dependent on employment policy that has a positive impact on the dependent variable. Unexpectedly, none of macroeconomic variables such as economic growth, wage and household consumption has an impact on the number of female borrowers.