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Financial Inclusion Reforms and Female Entrepreneurship in Latin America: Evidence With Health Equity Heterogeneity.
Mario de la Puente1, José Torres2, Hernán Guzmán2
1Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Colombia.
Health Services Insights
|July 15, 2026
Summary
Financial inclusion reforms in Latin America boosted female entrepreneurship. However, the impact of these economic policies was moderated by existing gender inequities in health systems across 15 countries.
Area of Science:
- Economics
- Public Health
- Gender Studies
Background:
- Female entrepreneurship is crucial for women's economic participation in Latin America.
- Financial inclusion reforms aim to enhance economic opportunities but their impact on entrepreneurship, especially for women, requires further investigation.
- The interplay between economic policies and health system equity in shaping entrepreneurial outcomes is not well understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To estimate the causal effect of national financial inclusion reforms (2014-2018) on female entrepreneurship in 15 Latin American countries.
- To examine whether the effectiveness of financial inclusion reforms in promoting female entrepreneurship is moderated by pre-existing gender inequities in health systems.
- To contribute to economic policy analysis by integrating a health-related contextual framework.
Main Methods:
- Utilized staggered difference-in-differences with Callaway-Sant'Anna estimators for causal inference.
- Employed data from the World Bank, ECLAC, and PAHO spanning 2014-2021.
- Constructed a composite index of gender inequity in health systems, including maternal mortality, antenatal care, contraceptive prevalence, and health insurance access.
Main Results:
- Financial inclusion reforms demonstrated a positive causal effect on female entrepreneurship across the studied countries.
- The positive effects of these reforms on female entrepreneurship were found to be moderated by the level of pre-existing gender inequity within national health systems.
- Countries with lower baseline gender inequity in health systems showed a more pronounced positive impact of financial inclusion reforms on female entrepreneurship.
Conclusions:
- National financial inclusion reforms can be an effective tool for promoting female entrepreneurship in Latin America.
- Addressing gender inequities within health systems is crucial for maximizing the economic benefits of financial inclusion policies for women.
- Policy interventions should consider the synergistic effects of economic and health system reforms to foster inclusive economic growth and women's empowerment.
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