Financial Inclusion, Gender Equity and Digitisation in MENA Countries before and during the Pandemic

People, especially youths, lack financial inclusion with respect to account holding and the use of financial services, both traditional and digital. This paper tackles the following research question: Are financial inclusion patterns similar or distinct, according to gender, age and driving factors (self-selection vs. discrimination)? We analyse the determinants of financial inclusion for 6,000 individuals, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic (four surveys over 2011-2021), addressing a representative sample of six MENA countries: Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Tunisia. A series of probit regressions provide four main results related to hypotheses: (i) The gender gap (H1) regarding financial inclusion only rose during the pandemic y for account holding. (ii) There is an age gap (H2) with respect to account holding (whatever the period) and use of traditional services (before the pandemic), with an inverted age gap to digital services (during the pandemic), which predominates for females over males. (iii) Endogenous self-selection predominates over exogenous discrimination (H3). (iv) Despite the gender gap, men do not enjoy substantially greater financial inclusion than women, with respect to self-selection and discrimination (H4).