Community norms, peer influence, and women’s digital financial inclusion: evidence from India

• We examine how gendered community norms and peer behaviour effect women’s adoption of digital financial services in India. • Results show that peer usage within communities plays a key role in shaping women’s uptake of digital financial services. • Restrictive gender norms, particularly those that limit women’s mobility, substantially reduce the likelihood of adoption. • Financial literacy efforts and mobile access should align with community-based approaches that address restrictive norms. Despite rapid advances in digital finance, significant gender gaps persist, especially in South Asia. Using nationally representative data from India’s NFHS-5 survey (n = 84,213), this study explores how community norms and peer behavior shape women’s adoption of digital financial services. Employing a 2–2–1 multilevel moderated mediation model, we find that women are significantly more likely to engage in digital finance when embedded in communities with high peer usage, aligning with behavioral diffusion theory. However, this peer influence is curtailed in communities with restrictive gendered mobility norms. Our findings underscore the layered interaction between individual agency and community-level social structures. The study reveals that women’s employment and relative income foster digital adoption both directly and via increased peer exposure. Yet, this pathway weakens in socially restrictive environments. These insights highlight the necessity of norm-sensitive, community-level interventions to promote inclusive digital finance for women in low- and middle-income countries.