Welfare Impacts of Mobile Banking Use in Rural Africa: Gender Disaggregated Evidence from Eight Sub-Saharan African Countries

This paper examines the impact of the use of mobile banking services on household welfare and gender inequality in consumption. The empirical analysis is based on large original datasets from eight West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo) and employs two comprehensive identification strategies that help to address the endogenous bias associated with the decision to use mobile banking services. First, we document a persistent consumption gap between male- and female-headed households. Second, we find that households using mobile banking services significantly improve both food and non-food consumption per capita. We also find that the gender gap in welfare is significantly reduced for rural female-headed households using mobile banking services. Our findings highlight the need for policy and regulatory reforms that facilitate access to and use of digital finance, as well as the need for proactive, gender-sensitive digital finance policies.