Understanding Financial Inclusion in Mongolia from a Micro Perspective: Is There a Gender Gap?

This paper investigates the determinants of financial inclusion in Mongolia – a country where persistent “reverse” gender gap in financial inclusion exists. When applying multivariate logistic models to nationally representative data, results show that women, and those who are more educated and older are more likely to be financially included. Women are four percentage points more likely than men to have access to formal finances; men are more likely to report barriers to finance and use informal finances. The Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique is employed to analyze the “reverse” gender disparity in financial inclusion. The results demonstrate that the disparity is largely due to coefficient effects that reflect behavioral or unobserved differences towards financial inclusion between men and women