Kaur, Sandeep Chavan, Pallavi and Lakhiani, Riddhi creator text Economic & Political Weekly monographic eng

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61(25), Jun 20, 2026: p.135-146 Treating access to bank deposits as the basic benchmark, this paper, using household-level data, argues for a wider understanding and assessment of women’s financial inclusion. Deposit access has grown significantly for women, along with a welcome trend of diversification of their financial savings from deposits to other formal savings instruments in the post-pandemic period. However, women’s usage of bank deposits and other formal instruments remains much lower. In 2025, the credit-to-deposit ratio for women was only 43% as compared to 93% for men. The gender gap is wider in the well-banked regions, including urban areas, indicating that banking development in these regions has not benefited women proportionately. – Reproduced https://www.epw.in/journal/2026/25/special-articles/financial-inclusion-women-india.html Economic & Political Weekly 260713