Direct Deposit Account Linkage and Wage Control
Rural female participants in public work programs often face administrative and procedural barriers when attempting to link personal bank accounts for direct wage deposits, which reduces female autonomy over earned income.
Picture this
Direct deposit functions like delivering a locked money box directly to a person's private locker rather than leaving cash on a shared family living room table. When wages flow straight into a woman's individual account, household members cannot automatically intercept or control the funds, preserving her individual spending authority.
What the evidence says
Prior to intervention, women completed 42% of public workdays, but 75% of surveyed women desired work and struggled with direct deposit linkages, prompting an evaluation of wage control impacts on decision-making and family planning.
- Who
- 9,600 households across 480 Gram Panchayats in Madhya Pradesh, India. [5]
- How
- Clustered Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) across 90 blocks divided into direct deposit assistance, direct deposit plus video training, and comparison groups. [4, 6, 7]
What to do
Provide targeted administrative assistance to help female workers link individual bank accounts to government employment platforms for direct deposit wage delivery.
From the source
"The Madhya Pradesh State Employment Guarantee Council (MPSEGC) will offer women in these blocks help linking their bank accounts to MGNREGS so they can get paid via direct deposit."
The_Impact_of_Womens_Employment_and_Control_over_Income_on_Family.pdf