Digital Financial Inclusion and Women in the Informal Economy

Abstract

The informal sector is a vast and significant segment of Indian economy in terms of its economic contribution and growing number of workers the sector engages. This informal sector is the biggest source of female employment, their significance was considered marginal and they constituted the reserved labour force. In a report of Deloitte, the consultancy firm, 95 percent or around 195 million women are employed in the unorganized sector or in unpaid labour in India. It further says that involving women in India’s workforce can help achieve future aspiration that can boost India’s GDP by 27 percentage. Unfortunately, these women are often discriminated in terms of wage and are left with job insecurity. They are paid very meagre wages and the employer is not accountable to any one because there are no complaints on it. This paper analyzes the opportunities and challenges of digital financial inclusion of women workers in the informal sector and see how far this can promote development of the informal economy, which in turn improves the overall GDP and eradicates poverty to a good extent.