Giving every woman in the world a bank account sounds great, but it hasn't actually helped them get jobs because the money stays in the local 'cash' economy.
March 27, 2026
Original Paper
Where Does the Money Go? Financial Inclusion, Sectoral Savings, and the Gender Misallocation Trap
SSRN · 6353618
The Takeaway
Policy experts long believed that bank account ownership was the primary key to women's economic empowerment. This research shows that in countries like India, near-universal ownership hasn't increased labor participation because the specific 'signal' and sector of the accounts matter more than simply having one.
From the abstract
Between 2011 and 2024, global account ownership rose from 51% to 79% and the gender gap narrowed to six percentage points. Yet female labor force participation stagnated or declined across much of the developing world. This paper argues that the standard financial inclusion framework-which counts accounts-misses the object that matters: the sectoral allocation of savings and the signal environment that shapes it. Using the Global Findex 2025 micro data (144,090 respondents, 140 economies) and pr