Gendered Financial Behaviour in Ghana: A Comparative Study with South Africa

This chapter is motivated by the current debates on how gender gaps affect financial behaviour in developing economies. Using the FinScope surveys for Ghana and South Africa in 2010 and ordered logit regression models, we study how gender differences influence different financial services. The results show that financial behaviours between men and women in Ghana and South Africa are diverse, and there is much heterogeneity in using various financial services. This chapter questions the social stereotypes on gendered economic behaviour and risk aversion as fewer women in Ghana are likely to use general financial and investment products compared to women in South Africa. Further, while men in Ghana and South Africa use advanced investment products, the lower use of formal financial services by women can be explained by gender gaps in social dimensions such as income, education, regional variation, race and age. A key finding in this chapter is that bridging the gender income gap is important to promote the use of financial services by all groups of women. This chapter confirms the need for discourses on financial inclusion to include non-financial approaches to understand how gendered social status engenders embodied financial behaviours, social relations and risk aversion.