Women’s Reforms, Digital Payments, and Financial Inclusion in Saudi Arabia: Evidence from Global Findex 2014–2024

Abstract

Saudi Arabia experienced rapid convergence in women’s financial inclusion between 2014 and 2024, a period marked by the 2018–2019 reforms expanding women’s economic rights and the accelerated deployment of digital payment infrastructure. Using four waves of Global Findex microdata (2014, 2017, 2021, and 2024), this study estimates probability-weighted logit models with average marginal effects and decomposes gender gaps using nonlinear Kitagawa and Blinder–Oaxaca methods. Reform-era dynamics are examined by tracing changes in the gender gap across survey waves. The findings indicate that aggregate gender gaps in account ownership and digital payment usage narrowed substantially by 2024, with conditional gaps among employed adults no longer statistically significant, while sizable disparities persist among individuals outside the workforce. Decomposition results highlight increased female labor force participation as a key correlate of convergence, consistent with labor market integration playing a central role in women’s financial inclusion during the reform era.