Effect of Public Distribution System Workers in Influencing the Women Street Vendors to Use Banks - Enabling Financial Inclusion

Abstract

Women street vendors especially face tremendous challenges in terms of their financial security. Using banks for their financial transaction will give them respite from private money lenders, thereby leading to these ''women's' financial inclusion in the society. To convince these women street vendors to increase their usage of banks, it is proposed to garner the help of workers from the public distribution system (PDS). It is hypothesized that these PDS workers will act as influencers in convincing the women street vendors (SVs)to use the banks in a better manner. Two sets of questionnaires were developed. Initially, one was administered to get their bank usage pattern and PDS workers were then requested to educate the Women SVs on the benefits of banks. After six months, the second questionnaire was administered to find any significant change in behavior with the same set of women street vendors. The effect of age and education level of the women SVs in accepting the advice of PDS workers to use banks is investigated using a Multivariate generalized linear model (MGLM). The results of the MGLM suggest that education level of the SVs has an evident and contingent influence on their acceptance of PDS worker's advice, while age makes no significant difference. To compare whether the mean of the dependent variable (knowledge about bank) is the same or changed (change in knowledge about bank) before and after the PDS workers have educated the women SVs, paired-samples T test is used. Based on the results, it is concluded that the PDS workers make a difference in educating the Women SVs on the benefits and purpose of using banks. In order to find out exactly where the difference occurs between the groups a post hoc test is carried out. The outcome of the post-hoc test suggests that the impact of PDS workers is higher with the Women SVs whose education levels are lower. However, there is no improvement on the opinion in the women SVs whose education level is higher. It is suggested that policymakers use PDS workers to target women SVs with lower education levels to educate them on the benefits of using banks for financial transactions instead of relying on private money lenders. HIGHLIGHTSm Financial inclusion of women street vendors (SVs) m Educating women SVs on the benefits of using banks through PDS workers m Change in perception among women SVs after PDS workers educating them m Education level among women SVs have significant influence in accepting PDS 'workers' suggestions m Age has no impact in accepting PDS 'workers' suggestions

Effectiveness of Street Vendors Associations among Women Street Vendors: A Case Study of Nairobi CBD

“…Women street vendors across the globe face different challenges while working on the streets than their male counterparts (Jeyapaul & Manimaran, 2021). These women are physically abused, work overtime, lack access to sanitation, lack financial literacy, and financial inclusion to loans and credit (Kaur, 2020).…”

“…Various studies indicate that the most street vendors in urban cities are females (Jeyapaul & Manimaran, 2021). Women street vendors are, therefore, said to be empowered through street vending and most of them took on the task the role of bringing food to the table for their families (Chingono, 2016).…”

“…This has significantly increased the number of people seeking informal employment with street vendors constituting a majority of the workforce in the informal sector (Pratt, 2019). Across the globe, in Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, China and Sub-Saharan Africa, poor urban women enjoy a significant share of informal employment through street vending (Jeyapaul & Manimaran, 2021). Women street vendors find the entry and exit barrier in this trade to be negligible, the amount of capital and skill required to be less, and the work is flexible when combined with other activities such as taking care of children (Ntuli, 2020).…”