FROM A WOMEN'S LEAD TO A MEN'S LEAD: THE GENDER GAP IN DIGITAL PAYMENTS IN KAZAKHSTAN AND THREE CENTRAL ASIAN NEIGHBOURS, 2021-2024

Abstract

For most of the last decade, women in Kazakhstan were slightly more likely than men to have a financial account. Using the World Bank's Global Findex surveys of 2021 and 2024, I compared women and men in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in account ownership, digital payments and saving. In Kazakhstan the gap reversed. In 2021, 81.8% of women and 73.6% of men made or received a digital payment; in 2024 the figures were 82.1% and 88.3%. The change in the gap, 14.3 percentage points, is larger than its approximate 95% margin of error of 7.9 points. The reversal happened because men's use grew by 14.7 points while women's stayed almost the same. Accounts and saving moved in the same direction. Two other indicators changed at the same time: the share of men who received wages into an account rose by 22.9 points, and the share of women who received a government transfer or pension fell by 9.4 points. The neighbours followed different paths. In Tajikistan a gap in favour of men opened, in Uzbekistan an earlier male advantage in accounts and saving almost disappeared, and in Kyrgyzstan the gap hardly changed. These are country-level survey figures and cannot show causes, but they suggest that in Kazakhstan the way people receive money, through wages or government transfers, matters for who uses digital finance.

Keywords: gender gap, digital payments, financial inclusion, Global Findex, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, wages

How to cite

Abdesh D. FROM A WOMEN'S LEAD TO A MEN'S LEAD: THE GENDER GAP IN DIGITAL PAYMENTS IN KAZAKHSTAN AND THREE CENTRAL ASIAN NEIGHBOURS, 2021-2024 // Central Asian Scientific Journal. – 2026. – No. 4(32), Vol. 1. – Pp. 116–123.