Mainstreaming tribals through financial literacy – a review of literature

Purpose - The present paper is an attempt to understand the various concepts related to financial literacy. For the development of this paper, secondary data have been considered by visiting various sources of information. The reviews are made on four parameters, which include social exclusion among tribes, government initiatives for tribal development, socio-economic condition of tribes and impact of financial literacy on the lives of tribes. The purpose of this paper is to identify the variables and to undertake an empirical research on this topic. It is found that excluded from income-generating activities, formal education, political system are not getting adequate exposure for maintaining the standard of living. Mostly, the changing economic scenario of consumers, discrimination of wage and employment, lack of capital and financial literacy leads to the mismanagement of money. The financial products are the various causes of financial exclusion and need to be addressed through adequate financial literacy. Moreover, the study attempts to understand the various reasons of financial exclusion and to comprehend the empirical research on the topic as well. Design/methodology/approach - The present paper is based on the secondary data. In this regard, various sources of information have been visited to collect the data. Findings - The study finds that owing to exclusion from income-generating activities, lack of formal education, absence of patronage political in adequate means for maintaining an acceptable standard of living, caste discriminations, poverty and migration, exploitation in the hands of money lenders, marginal increase in income, absence of infrastructure, unemployment, lack of financial literacy and its resultant mismanagement of money among the tribal community has pushed them to the utter stage of poverty universally. Originality/value - The paper can help administrators and the policymakers of different regions across the world to take appropriate measures to focus on educating the people on different financial products and to increase the accessibility. Moreover, the paper can help research scholars to build platform of their research banking upon the data presented in this study.