Impact of Access to Credit on Labor Allocation Patterns in Malawi

SummaryThis paper uses data from the Malawi Financial Markets and Household Food Security survey to examine the impact of gendered access to credit on labor allocation patterns within the household. The paper corrects for potential endogeneity of access to credit in the estimations. Access to credit relies on the credit limit concept. Thus, an individual has access to credit from a particular source if he/she is able to borrow a positive amount from that source. Results suggest that the impact of access to credit depends upon both the gender of the recipient and whether it is formal or informal credit.