Factor Analytic Modelling of Empowerment and Financial Inclusion
Keywords:
Financial inclusion; Women empowerment; Factor analysis; Principal component analysis; Regression; Social, Economic, and Political dimensionsAbstract
The study uses factor analysis to explain the effect of financial inclusion on the lives of women and how it influences their ability to advance socially, economically and politically. A dataset of twelve variables is used to establish the underlying factors, and find out the interrelations between different measures of women empowerment. Before performing factor analysis, supplementary methods like the principal component analysis, Bartlett test of sphericity and the Kaiser Meyer Olkins measure had been used to verify the suitability of the analysis. Three main factors consider in this study like, economic empowerment, social empowerment, and political empowerment, followed by regression analysis to understand the influence of various aspects of empowerment on the degree of financial inclusion in a community; the results show that women who feel more in control of their economic, social and political lives are much more inclined to use the financial system. In turn, women empowerment is a key mechanism in promoting an inclusive community building, which has heavy implications on policy makers who strive to make a positive impact in the societies they operate.
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