Financial inclusion through FinTech and women's financial empowerment

Financial inclusion through FinTech and women's financial empowerment

PurposeWomen's financial empowerment (WFE) is one of the sustainable development goals. This research examines the effect of financial inclusion through FinTech (FIF) on WFE at the international level. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue.Design/methodology/approachThe authors ana...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of social economics 2023-08, Vol.50 (8), p.1038-1059
Main Authors: Esmaeilpour Moghadam, Hadi, Karami, Arezou
Format: Article
Language:eng
Subjects:
Bank technology
Costs
Developing countries
Economic growth
Employment
Empowerment
Financial inclusion
Financial independence
Financial services
Gender
Gender inequality
Households
Hypotheses
Industrialized nations
Inequality
Labor market
LDCs
Mobile commerce
Per capita
Poverty
Principal components analysis
Securities markets
Sex discrimination
Social change
Social norms
Sustainable development
Women
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Summary:PurposeWomen's financial empowerment (WFE) is one of the sustainable development goals. This research examines the effect of financial inclusion through FinTech (FIF) on WFE at the international level. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue.Design/methodology/approachThe authors analyze the dataset of 113 countries from the Global Findex (2017) and World Bank databases using principal component analysis (PCA) and cross-sectional data methodology. Initially, they calculate the overall index for FIF with PCA. Then, they investigate the effect of FIF on WFE in two groups of countries classified by low and high levels of gender discrimination.FindingsThe results show that the relationship between FIF and WFE is positive and significant in countries classified by low levels of gender discrimination. However, this effect is insignificant in countries with high gender discrimination. Hence, gender inequality is a barrier and denies financial independence to women.Research limitations/implicationsGiven these results, it seems unlikely that FinTech will be able to eliminate the gender gap in financial inclusion on its own for women's empowerment. To directly address the gender gap and alter attitudes and social norms across demographics, FinTech development may need to be supplemented with focused policy initiatives.Originality/valueThis study provides evidence of FIF's impact on WFE at the international level.
ISSN:0306-8293
1758-6712