Mobile Money and Women's Financial Autonomy in the Sahel: Heterogeneous Effects and Institutional Conditions for Success

DIAKITE, Nanamoudou and DIALLO, Ibrahima and SENE, Omar and SENE, Babacar (2026): Mobile Money and Women's Financial Autonomy in the Sahel: Heterogeneous Effects and Institutional Conditions for Success.

Abstract

This paper examines whether mobile money reduces gender gaps in financial autonomy across six Sahelian countries using Afrobarometer Round 9 data (2021-2023, N=6,540). Instrumenting adoption with distance to traditional financial services, we find pronounced heterogeneity: mobile money increases women's autonomy by 11 percentage points in Senegal (26% gap reduction) and 16 points in Sudan (38% reduction), with no detectable effects in four other countries. This variation correlates with ecosystem maturity, agent density, and regulatory quality. Mechanisms include transactional discretion, informal credit access, and enhanced security. Transformative impacts require 10-14 years ecosystem maturation and agent density above 1 per 2,000 inhabitants. Digital finance advances women's empowerment only under specific institutional conditions.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Mobile money; Gender; Financial inclusion; Instrumental variables; Sub-Saharan Africa; Sahel; Women empowerment; Heterogeneous effects
• Subjects: G - Financial Economics > G2 - Financial Institutions and Services > G21 - Banks ; Depository Institutions ; Micro Finance Institutions ; Mortgages; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J16 - Economics of Gender ; Non-labor Discrimination; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O3 - Innovation ; Research and Development ; Technological Change ; Intellectual Property Rights > O33 - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences ; Diffusion Processes; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O5 - Economywide Country Studies > O55 - Africa

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