Search

Kenya has seen unprecedented declines in fertility from the late 1970s, which stalled during the decade from the mid-1990s, only to resume in the early 2000s when Kenya experienced rapid growth in financial inclusion. In this paper, we do not intend to make causal explanations of these phenomena; instead, we explore what may be sensible to adduce from relationships between fertility and financial inclusion. The Kenyan context presents some unique challenges to establish such connections; regional geographic and ethnic differences, spatial and temporal uneven economic growth, diverse legacies of colonialism, all of which may have affected how fertility trends and financial inclusion activities played out. We find that while modernisation variables such as urbanisation, education, wealth and employment are convincingly related to lower fertility levels, there is little plausible evidence of a role for financial inclusion. More plausible explanations may be found in the country's colonial history, ethnic identities and post-independence politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial technology, or simply 'fin-tech', is increasingly seen as one of the key tools to facilitate poverty reduction and local economic development. One article in particular by Tavneet Suri and William Jack published in the leading publication Science has played a hugely influential role in promoting the fin-tech model in the global South using the example of Kenya's iconic M-Pesa money transfer platform. The authors' central claim is that M-Pesa has been instrumental in facilitating a major episode of poverty reduction. Our analysis shows that their analysis and claims are extremely problematic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]