Abstract This paper scrutinizes the impact of urban microfinance on livelihood strategies of borrower slum dwellers of Dhaka, Bangladesh (with primary and secondary data). The primary data was collected through a structured questionnaire on a total of 200 sample slum households of three slums (Korail, Jurain and WASA Colony slum) of Dhaka city (by a systematic random sampling). This paper uses econometric techniques of difference in differences (DID) and the probit model to analyze the data. The key finding is that urban microfinance has a statistically significant positive impact on some income or expenditure variables such as savings, educational expenditure, and transportation expenditure, but not with regards to all the income and expenditure variables. The probability of changing occupations of the microfinance borrowers is statistically significantly higher compared to the case of the non-microfinance borrowers. Microfinance also improved housing, utility usages, water and sanitation of the borrowers compared to the case of the non-borrowers. This paper would encourage the global microfinance institutions (MFIs) to expand their activities among the urban slum dwellers to obtain positive changes in the livelihood strategies of them.

中文翻译：

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城市小额信贷对孟加拉国达卡市贫民窟借款人生计策略的影响

摘要 本文详细研究了城市小额信贷对孟加拉国达卡贫民窟借款人的生计策略的影响（使用一手和二手数据）。原始数据是通过结构化问卷对达卡市三个贫民窟（Korail、Jurain 和 WASA Colony 贫民窟）的 200 户样本贫民窟家庭（通过系统随机抽样）收集的。本文使用差异中的差异（DID）和概率模型的计量经济学技术来分析数据。主要发现是，城市小额信贷对储蓄、教育支出和交通支出等一些收入或支出变量具有统计上显着的积极影响，但并非对所有收入和支出变量都具有显着的积极影响。与非小额信贷借款人的情况相比，小额信贷借款人改变职业的概率在统计上显着更高。与非借款人相比，小额信贷还改善了借款人的住房、公用事业使用、水和卫生设施。本文将鼓励全球小额信贷机构（MFI）扩大其在城市贫民窟居民中的活动，以获得他们生计策略的积极变化。