Countering Poverty and Patriarchy? Women and Microfinance in Tuan Giao district of Dien Bien province, Vietnam

Introduced to Vietnam in 1980s, microfinance has been acknowledged by Vietnam Government for its important role in fighting poverty. It was assumed that, once the women could earn and contribute frequent income to the family, they would gain a higher status in the family in terms of decision-making pow-er and control over their lives. Therefore, microfinance providers, putting their focus on women and targeting the poorest of the poor, have employed women’s empowerment to their objectives besides the poverty alleviation goal. Thus, this paper is concerned with the impacts of microfinance on the gender division of labour as well as women’s economic, social and political empowerment, using the dimensions and different paradigms in the linkage between microfinance and women’s empowerment which were developed by Linda Mayoux. It analyses whether economic improvements resulted from micro-finance loans could help to challenge and transform the gender relation within the household. In addition, it studies women’s participation in household decision-making, the gender division of labour and its re-enforcement by patriarchy associated in a specific context in order to reflect the factors that affect women’s social and political empowerment by microfinance.