Ladder or Safety Net? Financial Inclusion and Women’s Social Mobility in Mexico

This paper asks a policy-relevant question for Mexico: when financial inclusion expands, does it help women climb the socioeconomic ladder, protect them from falling, or both? Using the Survey on Social Mobility in Mexico 2023 (ESRU–EMOVI 2023) survey and a use-based measure of financial inclusion, we combine probit models with intergenerational origin–destination transition matrices to document how inclusion correlates with mobility—and how the pattern differs by gender. We find that financial inclusion is associated with a more favorable mobility profile overall, but the returns are distinctly gendered. Among those originating at the bottom, inclusion is more strongly linked to men’s exits from the lowest quintile, while for women inclusion is especially associated with remaining in the top quintile and avoiding downward mobility. These asymmetries align with evidence that women face binding structural constraints and unequal financial socialization within households, which can weaken women’s ability to convert financial access into upward movement. Taken together, the results imply that closing gender gaps requires policies that go beyond access—pairing inclusion with interventions that relax structural barriers and disrupt gendered transmission of financial skills so that inclusion can function as a genuine mobility ladder for women. JEL Codes: D14, G21, I24, J16, O15