Independent research · 9 slides
Who counts as empowered?
Slide 1
Own-use bank accounts rose 25.6 points between NFHS-4 and NFHS-5. Three household decisions rose 4.7.
Tables and code: research page.
Slide 2
The indicator of agency used here is currently married women who usually participate in three household decisions.
Tables and code: research page.
Slide 3
An account is a resource. Decision-making is a thin agency measure. Dashboards often count the first and speak the second.
Tables and code: research page.
Slide 4
Eleven Phase-II states: correlation of accounts with decisions is 0.72. The slope is 0.33, not 1.
Tables and code: research page.
Slide 5
Mobile phones add almost nothing once accounts are in the model (R² 0.52 to 0.55).
Tables and code: research page.
Slide 6
National time series is stricter than the cross-section. The slope over-predicts the decision-making gain.
Tables and code: research page.
Slide 7
MGNREGA persondays, NRLM membership and PMMVY portal counts are throughput. Drèze and Khera put PMMVY effective coverage near 9% of births in 2023–24.
Tables and code: research page.
Slide 8
Ask four questions in concurrent evaluation: who decided to apply, who knows the amount, who operates the account, who could refuse.
Tables and code: research page.
Slide 9
Limits: n=11, ecological, mixed denominators. The finding is descriptive. Monitoring can still stop using Jan Dhan as a synonym for empowerment.
Tables and code: research page.