NES Center for the Study of Diversity and Social Interactions and HSE International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development are happy to invite you to our joint meeting of the Research Seminar on Diversity and Development and HSE Seminar on Political Economy.
Laurent Weill (Université de Strasbourg) will present the paper “Sex, Language and Financial Inclusion”.
Registration: till 4 p.m. of May 5, link to video-conference will be sent up to 5 p.m.
Abstract:
Reference to gender in language can lead individuals to draw distinctions between genders and reinforce traditional views of gender roles. To test our hypothesis that language gender-marking exerts an influence on the gender gap in financial inclusion, we draw on data for 117 countries in the World Bank’s Global Findex database and perform logit estimations at the individual level. We find the gender gap in the probability of owning a formal account, having access to a formal credit, as well as having savings in a formal financial institution is higher for countries with gendered languages than for countries with genderless languages. These findings are confirmed in robustness checks that control for alternative measures of culture and estimations at the country level.