Towards Financial Inclusion in South Asia: A Youth and Gender Perspective

The youthful population of South Asia, having almost one-third of the population below the age of 15 years old, seems also to have a great share in the future alongside the risk of being NEET with a persisting gender gap. This makes important for South Asian countries to put a gender-responsive policy framework for the youth empowerment at the heart of their efforts towards the 2030 Agenda. Increasing youth’s financial inclusion at the individual level would also provide development benefits especially for developing and least developed countries. This paper, after constructing a multidimensional financial inclusion index, shows evidence on how to increase the formal financial inclusion among the South Asian youth considering also gendered effects and it provides policy recommendations accordingly.