The Impact of Digital Financial Serviceson Women Economic Empowerment in Rural South Asia ( 2004-2023)

Abstract

Thestudyisanempiricalinvestigationoftheimpactof digital finanical services(DFS)adoptionanditsimpactonwomen economic empowerment in rural SouthAsia from 2004-2023. The relationship is investigated through a panel for the countries, India , Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Despite having increased access to digital financial services in the region women have been disadvantages in terms of being empowered due to gender inequality, low literacy and poor infrastructure. The panel data is estimated through a fixed effects model where the relationship between the interaction terms offemale literacy and digital finanical services (DFS)adoption influences femaleautonomy proxies by women'scontrol overfinancial decisionmaking.Thestudyfurtheralso explores theimpact of gender inequality with female literacy and how it impacts women's economic empowerment while also exploring the same impact for digital penetration. The findings show that female literacyisasignificantfactorinempoweringwomen.However,transactionvaluesalonemight have negative effects on empowerment, especially where gender inequality is high. While, digitalpenetrationhasastrongpositiveimpactandshowstheneedforbetter digital infrastructure. Theresearchhasfilledanimportantgapbycombiningdifferentdimensions,digital finanical services (DFS),finaicla literacy,and structural inequality into a single multi country analysis over two decades. The study has a practical and theoretical approach supported by the capability approach and offers policy recommendations that can help in implementing the study's findings. Lastly, the study concludes on a note that women can truly be empowered in this region when financial and female literacy is paired with digital finanical services (DFS) and there is mitigation of gender inequality and promotion of equity in the society.