Financial inclusion and gender income inequalities in informal entrepreneurship: The case of Cameroon

The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of access to different financial products in reducing income inequalities between men and women working in the informal sector in Cameroon. To this end, we use the World Bank database World Bank Global Financial Inclusion (Global Findex) dataset 2018 to assess the evolution of access to financial services through a descriptive analysis and the fourth Cameroonian survey conducted by the National Institute of Statistics in 2014 to estimate a probit model and a Fairlie decomposition model. Empirical results suggest that indeed, income inequality between the sexes continues to increase in Cameroon, regardless of the indicator used to measure it. In particular, women working in the informal sector use services such as bank accounts and credit cards more than men, but women also use non-formal financial services the most. Among the inclusion factors of the actors involved, obtaining credit to start a business is a key element for an individual working in the informal sector, yet there are significant gaps in accessing credit between men and women in informal activities and gender inequalities explain 13.96% of this gap. This means that when it comes to accessing credit, men are more financially included than women. These results lead us to make recommendations on economic policies to improve access to credit and expand the use of mobile financial services among women working in the informal sector to reduce income inequality between the sexes in Cameroon.