Financial Inclusion for Equitable Growth: An Ordinal Logistic Regression Analysis

This study examined the impact of age, gender, educational qualification, occupation, income, and source of income on the financial inclusion determinants: financial awareness, accessibility, availability, and usability. A comprehensive four-stage methodology was employed, including an extensive literature review, questionnaire development, data collection, and econometric modeling using ordinal logistic regression. The research employed a multistep sampling method to identify 102 participants from two sections within the district. The model-fitting metrics illuminated a significant statistical model fit, and the goodness-offit test indicated that the resulting model was sufficiently feasible. The research findings indicate that the degree of “financial inclusion” in the Sambalpur district of Odisha is significantly influenced by demographic variables. The most significant contributors to the financial inclusion program were younger beneficiaries, males, farmers, daily wage workers, beneficiaries earning more than 5,00,000 rupees per annum, beneficiaries relying on salaries, government subsidies, and daily wages. The pseudo-R2 measures showed that the independent variables explained a considerable proportion of the variation in dependent variables. This study offers insightful information on how demographic variables impact rural residents' ability to receive banking services. It has important ramifications for Sambalpur's local administration, national government, and regional financial institutions.