Jul 30, 2017 · 2 min read
Very interesting! Given the large body of data related to financial inclusion that is available in Nigeria, one could come up with a couple of workable hypothesis to consider. Here are some quick back-of-the-envelope thoughts:
- 0.7% of males and 0.3% of females in Nigeria own a mobile money account, and the percentage of active account usage is almost the same (Intermedia). In so far as Paylater requires conducting financial transactions via mobile phone, a similar 2x gender differential may apply here too.
- The % of formally included population varies quite a bit by geo-political zones , and in some cases there is some correlation. For example, only 26% of the NE was formally included in 2014 (EFInA 2015), and this is the region that had the highest gender imbalance in your data.
- % of women who save through formal vs informal vs both means are 29% vs 20% vs 9%. % of women who borrow through formal vs informal vs both means are 21% vs 2% vs 0.9% (Intermedia). There is therefore a very strong preference among women to borrow through informal means. The study doesn’t say what the %’s are for men though..
There are a couple of other clues we can find in each of these three sources, and others. Chances are, multiple variables are interacting to give the results we are seeing. The good news is a lot of the granular survey data should be fairly readily available, and will keep the data wonks occupied for a while. Just one thought — may need a bit more than t-tests to disentangle the correlation of each possible explanatory variable!
