Determinants of Financial Inclusion of Urban Women: Evidence from Ahmedabad, India

Abstract

<p class="Normal1">One of the utmost active practices is to adopt an inclusive growth policy to achieve economic growth. An inclusive growth means include the excluded population into all benefits. Financial inclusion is a financial upliftment process, to help poor, slum, backward and women to come out from the poverty trap. Financial inclusion means inclusion of excluded population to access formal financial services like savings, borrowings, insurance and pension from formal financial institutions. For constructing strong financial system, it is very necessary to know first that whether sources of financial services are actually reaching to the unreached people; the awareness among people for the formal financial services i.e., financial literacy and inclusion of the excluded population by providing banking services. Among socio-economic problems in India, gender inequality is one of the major affecting problems. A noteworthy access gap has taken place between male and female regardless of significant development in broadening access to formal financial products in the country. The main objectives of this research are to examine nature and extent of accessing major financial inclusion services including Government financial inclusion programs by urban women and to analyze the determinants of financial inclusion for urban women of Ahmedabad district (having highest urban female population in Gujarat). Primary data collection method is used through semi-structured questionnaire. Probit model is constructed to analyze the financial inclusion determinants of urban women of Ahmedabad district. Considered major financial inclusion services are opening bank account, savings, borrowings and insurance. Major finding of this study is that poor urban women are being considered as less benefitted from financial inclusion services, where in-migration, financial literacy and borrowings were found to significantly influence the participation of urban women in financial inclusion programs.</p>