Remittances and Female Financial Inclusion: A Global Perspective

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to examine the significance of remittances for female financial inclusion. Female are among the most financially excluded segment of the society. Remittances can play a significant role in enhancing female financial inclusion. Remittances provide females with the necessary finances they require. To investigate the relationship, we used global data of females from GFI (2017) database. By using pooled OLS estimation technique, we find that remittances do improve female financial inclusion. This result is robust to controlling for the potential endogeneity of remittances using IVs. It also suggests remittances induce females to save and to borrow from financial institutions. Socio-economic and regional heterogeneity seems to influence the remittances-female financial inclusion relationship. Our results suggest that remittances can be an alternative source of finance that can be helpful in enhancing female financial inclusion. Therefore, policymakers should focus to ease out the process of remittances collection.