From Access to Usage: The Shifting Gender Gap in India's Financial Inclusion

ABSTRACT Despite near‐universal account ownership, India's financial inclusion gender gap has shifted from access to usage. Using Global Findex 2021 data from 3000 respondents and employing Fairlie's nonlinear decomposition alongside a path‐independent detailed decomposition, we document significant gender gaps in card ownership, digital access, card use, and mobile money, but not in account ownership or borrowing. Education, employment, income, and locality are the dominant endowment‐side drivers. However, a substantial unexplained component persists across digital indicators, revealing that equally endowed women convert socioeconomic characteristics into financial outcomes at lower rates than men. Closing this gap demands addressing structural barriers beyond human capital.