Gender equality norms and financial inclusion of women: A multi-level analysis

Why are women financially excluded? This paper documents and analyzes gender differences in the use of formal financial services using multilevel models fitted to individual-level data from 121 countries and over 250, 000 individuals. The data, taken from the Global Financial Inclusion Survey (Global Findex) database, underline the existence of a significant, persistent and systematic gender gap in ownership and use of accounts. Even after accounting for a host of other relevant individual and country level characteristics, gender remains significantly associated with the use of financial services. This study also finds that economy-wide legal discrimination against women and gender norms may explain some of the cross country variation in access to finance for women. The analysis shows that in countries where women face legal restrictions in their ability to work, women are less likely to own an account, relative to men. However, countries that promote gender equality particularly in the workplace and have strong enforcement mechanisms to uphold laws tend to have greater incidence of financially included females.