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Help Indian prostitutes save
Here is another innovative way to help the poor:
Sangini Women’s Co-operative Bank aims to help these women break that cycle by providing savings accounts to the sex workers that can then be passed down to their children. As one sex worker laments:
“But earlier there was no way to save money. Even if you gave it for safekeeping to a shopkeeper or brothel manager, they would never return it.”
One of the interesting outgrowths of this newfound ability to save is that it provides the women a means to say no to clients that are unwilling to use or do not have condoms. Accordingly, these savings accounts give the opportunity to the women to protect themselves from HIV.
Here is the link and more. Note that when it comes to insuring against consumption risk, even zero interest savings can be more efficient than paying a high interest rate on micro-credit.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on March 12, 2008 at 06:07 AM in Economics | Permalink
Comments
Isn't the traditional mode of saving in India the purchase of gold jewelry? That probably leaves you more vulnerable to theft, but I don't see why prostitutes could not have saved in the past. The bank probably does not earn a high enough real interest rate to make a big difference, so why is this important? The ability to easily save any arbitrary amount?
Posted by: Cliff at Mar 12, 2008 8:32:47 AM
Thanks for the post. And, beyond the savings rate argument the female empowerment argument has definitive health benefits regardless.
Posted by: Vinay at Mar 12, 2008 10:48:49 AM
Isn't the traditional mode of saving in India the purchase of gold jewelry? That probably leaves you more vulnerable to theft, but I don't see why prostitutes could not have saved in the past. The bank probably does not earn a high enough real interest rate to make a big difference, so why is this important? The ability to easily save any arbitrary amount?
How is gold jewelry any better than currency? Maybe slightly less subject to theft? I think that's the point here. If you have a savings account, the risk of theft goes way down. The interest rate is irrelevant.
Posted by: mpowell at Mar 12, 2008 12:13:40 PM
This is well-known in the field of microfinance. In fact, 7 out of every 8 microfinance accounts are savings accounts, worldwide. Microcredit gets the publicity, but it's really a small proportion.
Posted by: jb at Mar 12, 2008 1:17:44 PM
The remarkable Stuart Rutherford (The Poor and their Money) have shown that credit is getting a lumpsum upfront and they paying it off by saving later. Referred publication by Nidhya Menon (Brandies) show that credit from Grameen Bank allowed the borrowers to smooth consumption.
Posted by: Asif Dowla at Mar 12, 2008 9:13:12 PM
Ironic, aint it, that our prostitutes now need us to set up banks for them when historically it was the other way round.
I can personally testify, having once worked for the State Bank of India and thus having had plenty of leisure for particularly vivid fantasies in this regard, that it was the oldest profession in ancient Sumer & India & so on, which actually jump-started the credit creation process- (concretised in temples not banks, but then belief is credit, credit, belief)- and it was the great courtesan Ambapali who helped finance Lord Buddha's own Marginal Revolution.
The point here is sex work is of its nature (think 'Sperm competition) the archetype and metaphor for all the various branches of the Financial services industry. Stigmatising sex workers was the Priests' way of engineering a management buy-out of Credit creation. I'm reminded of the film "Mandi"- I've forgotten the author of the short story on which it was based- and the tale of the brothel which is forced to relocate by hypocritical aldermen as the suburb becomes respectable only for a new suburb to spring up around its new location with the result that the brothel is forced to move again.
The reason I bring this up is that, obviously, for this thread to become truly obscene, someone should now add some pious crap about 'social exclusion' next.
Posted by: vivek iyer at Mar 25, 2008 2:06:38 AM
i want to have sex
Posted by: arvind at Nov 15, 2008 10:41:55 AM
