In rural India, digital financial services have the potential to drive financial inclusion, particularly in the wake of the government’s push to achieve near-universal account ownership and expand rural financial service points. Despite this progress, there are large gender gaps in the use of digital financial services (DFS). Researchers affiliated with Inclusion Economics worked with a state government to evaluate whether distributing smartphones to rural women could reduce digital gender gaps in phone and DFS access. Approximately four years later, women in communities receiving phones were no more likely to own or use a smartphone than women living in areas that did not benefit from phones, and these women were no more likely to use or know about DFS. The gap in DFS use persists even when focusing only on recent smartphone users.
Type: Policy Brief
Year: 2025
