Access to Digital Financial Services and Women Empowerment: Evidence from Rural Rwanda

Rosemary Botha, Tony Mwenda Kamninga and Methode Tuyisenge

Working Papers from African Economic Research Consortium

Abstract: This study investigated the extent to which access to digital financial services empowers women to engage in more high value activities within the household. The study used the 2020 Rwanda FinScope Survey data, a nationally representative data set covering 12,480 individual respondents from all the districts in the country. Using a control function (CF) instrumental variable technique, the study found that mobile money increased womens ability to make decisions about the management of household income on their own or jointly with their partner (agency). The results further indicate that mobile money increased female access to credit. Usage of mobile money had a positive and significant effect on agency for women residing in rural Rwanda. Although females residing in female-headed households experienced an increase in agency and access to credit, the rate of change for females residing in male-headed households were comparatively higher. The results provide evidence of incremental agency benefits that digital financial inclusion has for women whose baseline decision-making power is low, especially in patriarchal societies where women have been historically disenfranchised in household decision-making. Thus, mobile money could be used as a tool for poverty reduction and service providers; can invest in developing services that deepen household savings and credit through mobile money to further contribute to improvement of household welfare.

Date: 2024-07-17
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-fle and nep-pay
Note: African Economic Research Consortium
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://publication.aercafricalibrary.org/handle/123456789/3850 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aer:wpaper:3687a661-6991-478f-971a-00e6d2257011

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from African Economic Research Consortium Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Daniel Njiru ().