The Role of Business Training in Improving Digital Financial Literacy: Evidence from a Field Experiment for Subsistence Women Entrepreneurs

Women’s empowerment comes from their ability to exercise choice to achieve well-being outcomes through access to resources (pre-conditions) and agency. Resource and agency together constitute capabilities that enable poor women in developing countries to take up subsistence entrepreneurship. This paper explores whether subsistence women entrepreneurs can enhance their digital financial literacy agencies, which include numeracy, financial knowledge, self-efficacy, and digital payment proficiency, by undergoing a business training programme. Results from our field experiment in rural India suggest that business training develops numeracy and digital payment proficiency but does not alter financial knowledge or self-efficacy. We attribute this finding to the role of active learning in improving System 2 thinking required for cognitive skills. In the case of numeracy and digital payment proficiency, the learner had a higher propensity of retaining the learning based on the “use” factor (such as the application of numeracy concepts and digital modes of payment in regular business activities) rather than being a passive participant in the training intervention. The policy implications are that training and lending institutions must align their intervention programmes by integrating appropriate active learning opportunities for subsistence entrepreneurs.