Epidemiology: Open Access
Open Access

Abstract

Women bear an unequal share of the burden of poverty globally due to societal and structural barriers. One way that
governments, development agencies, and grassroots women’s groups have tried to address these inequalities is through
women’s economic self-help groups (SHGs). The primary objective of this review was to examine the impact of women’s
economic self-help groups on women’s individual-level empowerment in low- and middle-income countries using evidence
from rigorous quantitative evaluations. The secondary objective was to examine the perspectives of female participants on
factors determining their participation in, and benefits from, economic self-help groups using evidence from high-quality
qualitative evaluations. We conducted an integrated mixed-methods review that examines data generated through both
quantitative and qualitative research methods. We then integrated the findings to develop a framework for assessing how
economic self-help groups might impact women’s empowerment. We included a total of 23 quantitative and 11 qualitative
studies in the final analysis. We found that women’s economic self-help groups have small but positive effects on various
dimensions of women’s empowerment, including economic, social and political empowerment. SHGs were more effective
when the government or a community-based organization assisted in the formation of the group and when there were higher
levels of social support in the form of training. Strong group leadership facilitated more effective self-help group programs.
Self-help groups were most effective for women who were not the poorest of the poor but just above that level, because the
poorest of the poor were not likely to join self-help groups and, if they did, were least likely to benefit from the self-help groups.
Self-help groups were more effective when there was strong support from partners and/or other household members and no
pushback from community members. Pushback from community members was most likely when self-help groups were less
well established. Overall, we did not find evidence of negative effects of women’s self-help groups.

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