The Gender Gap in Financial Inclusion: A Global Analysis of Predictors and Trends

Despite the many documented benefits of financial inclusion, there exists a significant and persistent gender gap as men are generally more likely to have a bank account compared to women. Using the World Bank’s Findex database, a rich and representative individual-level dataset focused on financial inclusion in 144 countries between 2011 and 2017, this paper documents that although the overall level of financial access has increased globally, the gender gap has also widened. In addition to this increase, the effectiveness of individual-level characteristics in explaining this gender gap has fallen from what was found in previous literature. Using a series of linear regressions, the results suggest that external country-level factors are a key determinant of the gender gap. It is also found that country-level gender equity policy indicators that explained the gap in 2011 explain it less in 2017, while the explanatory power of cultural factors such as country religiousness and female social empowerment metrics has increased. Ultimately, this paper suggests that gathering comprehensive individual-level data on cultural factors may be an important addition to the next round of the World Bank’s Findex database. Regardless, further research to better understand this increasing and increasingly unexplained gender gap in financial inclusion is key to its mitigation.

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