Financial Inclusion and Women Empowerment: Scenario of Bangladesh

Abstract

Bangladesh, one of the most densely populated countries in South Asia, has experienced immense growth in the financial sector in the past few decades, with its GDP per capita of USD 2.65 thousand in 2024. This research paper aims to probe the current state of financial inclusion for women in Bangladesh and the barriers they face and propose potential suggestions to increase women's financial inclusion. Financial inclusion is a decisive issue for an economically developing country like Bangladesh. As financial inclusion improves economic growth, to ensure women's empowerment, one country should emphasize more participation of women in the formal financial system. However, the blue part is that, in Bangladesh, women face many barriers to accessing or using a formal financial system. They must catch up with educational slackness, social norms with restricted mobility or independence, and the inability of decision-making capability. In this paper, we will grasp the trend of women's financial inclusion in Bangladesh using different variables gathered from the World Development Indicator (WDI). The paper has been developed in a simple qualitative manner, mainly to keep it read-friendly to all stages of women of Bangladesh. For the betterment of the banking sector as well as for the betterment of economic growth, government and policymakers should focus on women's participation in financial inclusion of women.