Financial Inclusion and Females: State Level Analysis in India
- Author Jatinder Kaur
- DOI
- Country : India
- Subject : Commerce
Keywords : Financial Inclusion, Females, States, Accounts, Deposits, Disparities
Abstract
To check growing disparities, the policy makers in India have recognized financial inclusion as an important building block of inclusive growth. Financial inclusion refers to providing access to formal financial services at reasonable cost to all without any discrimination. To give a boost to promote financial inclusion in India, PMJDY was launched in August 2014. The plan envisages universal access to banking facilities with at least one basic banking account for every household. Since India is facing a daunting task of curbing gender gap disparities, so this paper attempted to measure the level of financial inclusion amongst the Indian females across all the 36 states and UTs of India. The level of financial inclusion has been measured using the number of female accounts in banks in proportion to the female population. An effort has also been made to study the usage of these accounts by females using the indicator of money deposited in these accounts. The study found that though in terms of ‘one account per household’ almost all the states have achieved 100% financial inclusion but in terms of gender, females lag far behind as even at the national average also the per capita female account value is less than one. Besides, the study also found presence of huge disparities in terms of female accounts across different states of India. Of the 36 states, only 11 states had at least one account per female and the remaining states cut a sorry figure in bringing their women under the umbrella of formal financial sector.
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