Emilios Galariotis

Saudi Arabia experienced rapid convergence in women’s financial inclusion between 2014 and 2024, a period marked by the 2018–2019 reforms expanding women’s economic rights and the accelerated deployment of digital payment infrastructure. Using four waves of Global Findex microdata (2014, 2017, 2021, and 2024), this study estimates probability-weighted logit models with average marginal effects and decomposes gender gaps using nonlinear Kitagawa and Blinder–Oaxaca methods. Reform-era dynamics are examined by tracing changes in the gender gap across survey waves. The findings indicate that aggregate gender gaps in account ownership and digital payment usage narrowed substantially by 2024, with conditional gaps among employed adults no longer statistically significant, while sizable disparities persist among individuals outside the workforce. Decomposition results highlight increased female labor force participation as a key correlate of convergence, consistent with labor market integration playing a central role in women’s financial inclusion during the reform era.

The article examines the sectoral features of the interaction between the Kazakhstani corporate sector and the capital market. The purpose of the study is to substantiate assumptions about the nature of this interaction, disaggregated by industry. The research focuses on the capital market and the corporate sector of the economy (finance, mining, telecommunications and IT, energy) in the Republic of Kazakhstan, while the subject of analysis is the economic relationships arising in the interaction between the capital market and listed companies in these sectors. The methodology combines systematic and functional approaches, applying economic and statistical methods (correlation analysis, structural analysis, index methods) as well as cross-sectoral comparative analysis. Empirical estimates are based on financial statements of Kazakhstani corporate sector companies for a five-year period, with calculations performed in EViews 10. The results show that: (1) the intensity and forms of interaction between the capital market and the corporate sector differ significantly by industry; (2) mining companies are minimally involved in the capital market and rely predominantly on bank lending; (3) for the non-financial corporate sector, the strategy of raising capital through debt securities is ineffective in terms of ROA and ROE. These findings indicate an imbalance in the domestic debt securities market, where demand does not adequately meet issuers’ funding needs, and can serve as a basis for policy recommendations to develop a more efficient and sector-sensitive national capital market.