Spatial Heterogeneity in Women’s Financial Inclusion in India: An application of small area estimation

Swati Srivastava, Kaushalendra Kumar, Lotus McDougal, Apoorva Nambiar, Ashish Kumar Upadhyay, Katherine Hay, Anita Raj and Abhishek Singh

PLOS ONE, 2026, vol. 21, issue 4, 1-20

Abstract: Background: While India is making notable strides in women’s financial inclusion, closing remaining gaps is hampered by a lack of granular data at the sub-state level. This study uses model-based small-area estimation techniques, linking data of National Family Health Survey 2015−16 and 2019−21, respectively, with the 2011 Indian Census data to generate district-level estimates of three components of women’s financial inclusion: women’s bank/savings account ownership, their knowledge and use of microcredit programmes in 640 districts of India in 2015−16 and 2019−21. Results: Model-based estimates reveal considerable intra- and inter-state variations in all indicators. In NFHS-5, estimates of bank/savings account ownership varied from 56.1% in Kiphire district of Nagaland to 95.4% in Perambalur district of Tamil Nadu. Knowledge of microcredit programmes varied from 11.8% in Lawngtlai district of Mizoram to a maximum of 84.9% in Thiruvarur district of Tamil Nadu. The use of microcredit programmes was more limited (7.7%). Substantial within state clustering was present in all the three components. Districts with lower prevalences in NFHS-4 registered higher increase between NFHS-4 and NFHS-5 in women’s bank/savings account ownership and their knowledge of microcredit programmes. Conclusions: Present study reveals considerable intra-state variations in both rates of financial inclusion and changes in financial inclusion levels over time. Our approach provides a new tool for policy makers to identify and close remaining gaps in women’s financial inclusion.

Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0347585 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 47585&type=printable (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:plo:pone00:0347585

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0347585

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().