Based on a sample of 67 interviews with borrowers and their family members as well
as interviews with 25 microfinance practitioners this study analyzes gold
collateralized microcredit. Since 2011 Pakistan’s microfinance banks (MFBs) have
extended loans against gold jewelry. The jewelry belongs to women of poor and
lower-middle income households, is the only asset they can consider theirs and is
passed down from one generation of women to the next. We find that collateralizing
gold jewelry in microcredit arrangements coopts patriarchal norms that determine a
complex form of gold ownership at the household level. This puts women at the risk
of intergenerational asset depletions, which in turn compromises their autonomy.