Are African female farmers disadvantaged on the microfinance lending market?

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine whether social and/or cultural obstacles faced by African female farmers diminish their accessibility to lending opportunities provided by a commercial microfinance institution; and affect their repayment performance. Design/methodology/approach The underlying data set is comprised of information regarding 9,710 farmers from Madagascar and was provided by the AccèsBanque Madagascar. Logit and Tobit models are applied to determine gender effects on loan accessibility and repayment performance, respectively. Findings Even though female farmers are associated with a lower repayment performance, they have a higher rate of loan application approval compared to male farmers. Research limitations/implications The results are limited to Madagascar and other African countries with similar socio-economic conditions. Social implications Commercial microfinance institutions still provide access to credit for disadvantaged groups, such as female farmers. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study investigating gender-specific credit access and repayment performance of rural African farmers using a data set from a commercial microfinance institution without a social mission for females.