Independent analysis · 2026
Financial inclusion is not the same as agency
Whether financial inclusion is a sufficient proxy for women’s agency.
Financial inclusion rose sharply between NFHS-4 and NFHS-5. The change in the household decision-making measure was considerably smaller.
+25.6 ppWomen 15–49 with a bank or savings account they themselves use. NFHS-4 53.0% to NFHS-5 78.6%.
+4.7 ppCurrently married women who usually participate in three household decisions. 84.0% to 88.7%.
The two measures moved very differently. That divergence makes it difficult to treat financial inclusion as a sufficient proxy for agency. Own-use mobile phones moved 8.1 points. House or land ownership moved 4.9. Paid cash work moved 6.3. Accounts are the outlier.
Pale bar: NFHS-4 (2015–16). Dark bar: NFHS-5 (2019–21). Women 15–49. Decision-making is currently married women who usually participate in three household decisions. Source: IIPS and MoHFW, NFHS India reports.
The programme question
Can Indian welfare use financial inclusion as a stand-in for women’s agency? An account is a resource. Decision-making, in the NFHS sense, is a thin measure of agency. An op-ed with Prof. Namrata Chindarkar, JSW School of Public Policy, IIM Ahmedabad, is in progress on the monitoring half of that question.
How I investigated it
Published NFHS-4 and NFHS-5 totals for women 15–49. State cut: eleven Phase-II states that carry the three indicators on the same factsheet. Ecological cross-section, not a causal model.
| State | Decisions % | Bank % | Mobile % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arunachal Pradesh | 87.0 | 78.2 | 76.4 |
| Chhattisgarh | 92.7 | 80.3 | 40.7 |
| Haryana | 87.5 | 73.6 | 50.4 |
| Jharkhand | 91.0 | 79.6 | 49.0 |
| Madhya Pradesh | 86.0 | 74.7 | 38.5 |
| Odisha | 90.2 | 86.5 | 50.1 |
| Punjab | 91.4 | 81.6 | 61.2 |
| Rajasthan | 87.7 | 79.6 | 50.2 |
| Tamil Nadu | 92.8 | 92.2 | 74.6 |
| Uttar Pradesh | 87.6 | 75.4 | 46.5 |
| Uttarakhand | 91.0 | 80.2 | 60.9 |
Interpretation
Accounts and decision-making correlate at 0.72; mobiles and decision-making at 0.22. A 10-point difference in accounts predicts about 3 points in decisions. Applied to the national 25.6-point jump, that slope would have predicted about 8 points. The country recorded 4.7. The slope is a description of how two published series fail to travel together, not a causal estimate of what opening an account does.
Fitted line: decision-making = 63.4 + 0.33 × bank account (R² = 0.52). n = 11 Phase-II states. Ecological cross-section. Source: NFHS-5 Phase-II factsheets.
For monitoring
Scheme dashboards count labour days, members, loans, portal instalments. Drèze and Khera put effective PMMVY coverage at about 9% of births in 2023–24. A short add-on could ask whether she decided to apply, knows the amount, operates the account, and could refuse.
Independent · Drèze and Khera, 2025
About 9 in 100 births.
Effective PMMVY coverage, 2023–24. Source: The Hindu, 11 March 2025.
n = 11 Phase-II states. Ecological. Decision-making is asked of currently married women; bank and mobile of all women 15–49. No wealth or education controls.
Sources
- IIPS and MoHFW, NFHS-5 (2019–21) and NFHS-4 (2015–16) India reports; NFHS-5 Phase-II factsheets.
- Jean Drèze and Reetika Khera, “A leap backward for maternity entitlements,” The Hindu, 11 March 2025.
- Naila Kabeer, “Resources, Agency, Achievements,” Development and Change, 1999.