Abstract:

The aim of this study is to test the relationship between the use of micro loans and women’s poverty for Turkey. The gain of power of the state’s decline by the influence of neoliberalism has led to the expansion of the influence of civil society organizations and local governments by the withdrawal of central authority from the social policy field. With this change, the individual is expected to get rid of poverty by producing and largely solve this problem with his own skills. Micro loans used in order to ensure that the poor, with limited channels of access to credit, are also an important tool to be assessed in this context. Micro loans are targeted to women who are one of the groups affected by the consequences of poverty. There has also been an important literature questioning whether micro-credit is an effective tool in strengthening women and fighting poverty. While some studies argue that micro-credit is an effective tool in reducing women’s poverty, some studies argue that poverty is related to social gender roles determined by informal institutions and that these solutions will remain insufficient. In this study, based on these discussions in literature, it is investigated which opinion applies to Turkey in the years 2006-2016. The study will use a symmetrical causality test of Hacker-Hatemi J (2010) which gives strong results in a small sampling. The findings have shown that there is no cause between the micro-credit level used and the decrease in women’s poverty. In the appearance of these findings, the influence of informal institutions on social gender and the insufficiency of education is considered determining.