Digital Connectivity, Institutions, and Women’s Financial Inclusion

Purpose: This study examines the cross-country association between women’s internet use and financial account ownership and assesses whether entrepreneurship-related legal frameworks, supportive frameworks, and enforcement perceptions are independently associated with account ownership. Methodology: Economy-level data for 2024 from the Global Findex Database 2025 are merged with the entrepreneurship topic of Women, Business and the Law 2026. The matched sample includes 140 economies, reduced to 128 when enforcement-perception data are required. Ordinary least squares regressions are estimated with HC3 heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors; alternative financial-use indicators and an interaction specification are used as sensitivity checks. Findings: Women’s internet use is positively associated with account ownership in all principal specifications. Entrepreneurship legal-framework scores and enforcement-perception scores are also positively associated with account ownership when entered separately alongside internet use, whereas supportive-framework scores are not statistically significant in the corresponding specification. The interaction between internet use and enforcement perceptions is positive but does not reach the 5% significance level. Originality: The article brings together recent, gender-disaggregated financial-access indicators and the three-pillar institutional structure of Women, Business and the Law 2026 in a cross-economy analysis. Practical implications: The findings support policies that combine digital connectivity with effective legal protections and implementation. Limitations: The analysis is cross-sectional and associational, lacks a GDP-per-capita control in this version, and uses entrepreneurship-topic scores as proxies for the broader institutional context.ReferencesAllen, F., Demirgüç-Kunt, A., Klapper, L., & Martinez Peria, M. S. (2016). The foundations of financial inclusion: Understanding ownership and use of formal accounts. Journal of Financial Intermediation, 27, 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfi.2015.12.003Beck, T., & Demirgüç-Kunt, A. (2008). Access to finance: An unfinished agenda. The World Bank Economic Review, 22(3), 383–396. https://doi.org/10.1093/wber/lhn021Chundakkadan, R., & Sasidharan, S. (2022). Gender gap and access to finance: A cross-country analysis. Review of Development Economics, 26(1), 180–207.Deléchat, M. C. C., Newiak, M. M., Xu, R., Yang, M. F., & Aslan, G. (2018). What is driving women’s financial inclusion across countries? International Monetary Fund.Fouejieu, A., Sahay, R., Cihak, M., & Chen, S. (2020). 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