While a plethora of researches on asset transfer and empowerment of women are available, there is very little on the ground which examines the "flypaper effects" in the context of asset transfer targeted to women - assessing whether asset transfers targeted to women "remain in their control, increase their overall resource control, and eventually increase their bargaining power and empowerment". The paradigm is that women may own such assets but control over these may be exercised from elsewhere. In South Asia, women may give up certain control rights on assets to remain "inside the union" and "keep the peace" in deference to patriarchal norm and because of shortage of social safety net. Â
Shalini Roy, Jinnat Ara, Narayn Das, and Agnes Quisumbing of Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and BRAC jointly produced a paper on this issue which has been published in the Journal of Development Economics ( 2015). The authors drew upon data set generated by BRAC's ultra poor programme. BRAC's "Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction - Targeting the Ultra-poor (CFPR-TUP)" is a randomised intervention with asset transfer, primarily of livestock, which also provides training to women in ultra-poor households in rural areas. The CFPR-TUP programmes typically targeted the transfer of resources with no explicit intention to promote women's asset ownership rather build asset base of the poor households as an aggregate unit.
The findings of the above-mentioned researchers - submitted below paraphrase at times - show a shift in the dynamics within the household through asset transfer.
 First, the authors find strong evidence that asset transfers targeted to women can increase women's ownership and control over the transferred asset. This outcome may occur even in contexts where the transferred asset is not typically thought of as a "woman's asset," as was the case for high value livestock in this study. This finding in itself represents a small transformation of gender norms with a question mark of whether this finding would be sustained over the long term.
Second, an increase in a woman's ownership and control over a transferred asset may not necessarily increase her overall control over resources or bargaining position in the household. In this study, only the assets directly transferred to a targeted woman appeared to remain in her control, while control over assets purchased from the generated income appeared to follow prevailing gender norms. Specifically, the programme appeared to cause greater increase in men's sole ownership and control over new investments across several categories of non-livestock assets (agricultural and non-agricultural productive assets, consumer durables, and land) than in women's ownership and control. It also reduced women's mobility (potentially reducing ability to physically control resources) and their voice in a range of decisions concerning themselves and their households. Consistent with theoretical models in economics that relate control over resources to decision-making power, it appears that women's overall control over resources decreased relative to men's, along with their relative intra-household decision-making power.
Third, in the context of asset transfer, if the transferred asset requires maintenance at home, targeting the asset to women may shift women's work inside the home. The desirability of working inside the home may depend on the local context (as highlighted in this study), but if it reduces mobility outside the home, it may also reduce women's decision-making power over the use of resources.
Fourth, individuals may value both tangible and intangible outcomes. While tangible measures are more readily captured in quantitative analysis, it is important to also account for intangible factors (such as self-esteem and social capital) when studying benefits and costs of a programme.
Fifth, in a broad sense, nuance is required in assessing whether interventions improve "women's empowerment." The study highlights that even if a programme's "household-level" impacts are quite unambiguously positive, effects on individuals within the household (such as the targeted women in this study) may be more ambiguous and complex. Additionally, some outcomes valued by individuals may be "intangible," and some that seem negative from an external viewpoint may be seen more favourably in the local context.
These findings are consistent with other work in Bangladesh suggesting the possibility that women in rural Bangladesh may in fact value contributing to the household more than having individual rights within the household. One possible dimension to this preference relates to women facing a potential trade-off between asserting individual rights and maintaining family support. In socio-cultural contexts where women's potential to function in society is limited without the support and protection of their husbands or other male household members, benefits of creating conflict within the household to assert individual rights may be outweighed by costs of losing family support. For example, one researcher finds, in the context of rural India, that land inheritance laws do not increase women's inheritance because women forgo claiming their legal rights in favour of retaining their family safety net. In effect, due to the need for both daily-life and old-age support systems from family, women may not find it worthwhile to assert individual rights at the cost of household relations, finding instead that contributing to the household serves them better.
A second dimension, however, is that, for socio-cultural or other reasons, women's perception of benefits in rural South Asia may simply differ from prototypical Western norms.
Lastly, nonetheless, if increasing women's asset ownership and decision-making power are explicit goals of a programme, a focused intervention such as a targeted asset transfer may not be sufficient. In a context such as rural Bangladesh, interventions aimed at increasing women's decision-making power may need to engage not only women, but also other household members (including men) and the community, in an effort to fundamentally transform socio-cultural norms.
The writer is Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University. Abdulbayes@yahoo.com