Gendered Digital Financing Adoption and Women's Financial Inclusion in Pakistan

2026-02-26

AI Summary

This study addresses the persistent barriers to financial inclusion faced by women in Pakistan, a context lacking systematic, data-driven analysis. Leveraging nationally representative data from the World Bank’s Global Findex, the research employs logistic regression and moderation models to examine the impact of mobile money services on women’s use of formal financial services, while assessing the moderating roles of mobile phone ownership, internet access, and educational attainment. The findings reveal that mobile money adoption significantly increases the likelihood of women accessing formal financial services, whereas internet access exhibits no significant effect—highlighting the critical influence of sociocultural factors over mere digital connectivity. These results provide empirical support for designing gender-sensitive fintech interventions and digital literacy policies tailored to the specific constraints and opportunities shaping women’s financial inclusion in Pakistan.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Mobility, Driving & Flight
• Machine Learning: Privacy
• Humans and AI: AI for Accessibility

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Social and technical mechanisms of refusal for web technologies and applications
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Applied ML and AI for Web-based mobile applications
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: The sharing economy

Abstract

Financial inclusion is a longstanding concern across underdeveloped communities, particularly for women. However, there are limited data-driven measures to first quantitatively identify such concerns and second to inform policies. In this work, we examine the digital money service adoption and women's financial inclusion in the context of Pakistan. We use the nationally representative Global Findex data from the World Bank to analyze how mobile money usage, when moderated by phone ownership, internet access, and education, affects women's access to formal financial services. Our findings show that women who adopt mobile money services have significantly higher odds of accessing formal financial systems. Findings also reveal nuanced insights: internet access does not significantly impact inclusion, highlighting the influence of socio-cultural constraints. Despite the limitations of using cross-sectional data and the absence of qualitative dimensions, our study contributes empirical evidence on gendered digital finance adoption. The findings have important implications for policy, including the need for women-centric fintech design and digital literacy reforms to bridge the gender gap in financial inclusion.

Problem

• financial inclusion
• gender gap
• digital financing
• women's access
• mobile money

Innovation

• digital financial inclusion
• gendered fintech adoption
• mobile money
• women's financial access
• Global Findex