Beyond financial inclusion: The need to focus on economic inclusion

For decades, financial Inclusion has been the north star for a number of countries, multilaterals and even the banking and finance sector, particularly the fintech sector. Over the years, it has proven its role to reduce poverty and lower income inequality. It is hopeful to see that there is a steady effort among public and private sector to promote greater financial inclusion. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas projects that 70 percent of adult Filipinos will have a bank account in 2023. To boost digital inclusion, BSP projects to shift 50 percent of total retail transactions to electronic channels. However, will a focus on financial inclusion alone translate to poverty reduction?

According to the Asian Development Bank, 18.1 percent of the Philippines’ population lived below the national poverty line in 2022. The July 2023 Social Weather Stations’ survey shows that approximately half of Filipino families consider themselves as poor. It is good to know that Government and private sector are scaling up its efforts on financial inclusion but it seems that there ought to be a greater focus on the true essence of financial inclusion, which is economic inclusion. Economic inclusion is about providing equal opportunity to men, women, boys, and girls to participate in labor, education, consumption, and economic transactions. This includes individuals with disabilities or different abilities, like individuals in the spectrum of autism. Maybe, just maybe focusing on the economic inclusion of autistic individuals can move the needle forward to greater financial inclusion.

There is a rising case of autism in the country and with that, an increasing number of families faced with the challenge of caring for autistic individuals. A University of the Philippines study concluded that with the high cost of diagnosis and autism related services, there is substantial economic burden for families caring for an autistic person. This can be very overwhelming for minimum wage earner families. Also, with the lack of services, a parent, mostly mothers sacrifice their career to tend to the needs of an autistic child. There is a multiplier effect, and that is even greater for families living in poverty. This leads to an endless cycle of poverty for the poor families and the inevitable path to greater financial exclusion.

On the flipside, economic inclusion of autistic individuals opens the path for sustainable lives for families and potentially enhance competitiveness in an organization or even a nation. Autistic individuals have different ways of learning, behaving and interacting due to a developmental disorder. They are individuals with challenges in social interaction, eye contact, difficulty in interpreting social queues, language and communication. A good number in this spectrum have extraordinary and unique skills for instance in mathematics or pattern recognition/attention to details. According to World Health Organization, average to above-average IQ scores occur in 44 percent of people who are in the autism spectrum.

The unique skills of autistic individuals have attracted a growing number of US companies. Among them are SAP, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Microsoft, Ford and EY. According to a Harvard Business Review article on Neurodiversity as a Competitive Advantage (2017), employment of autistic individuals has resulted to increase in productivity and employee engagement. Given the different thinking that autistic individuals bring, it paves the way for greater innovative solutions to these companies. Sadly, Philippine employers still have a long way to go to reach this mindset.

Beyond financial inclusion, there is a need to focus the nation’s effort on economic inclusion particularly the inclusion of autistic individuals and every person with disability. It may be perceived by employers as too big an investment to employ an autistic person or a person with disability, but there is a clear business case for their inclusion. Citing the International Finance Corporation’s Disability Inclusion Program, “The disability market is larger than China – 1.85 billion people and $1.9 trillion in annual disposable income. Discrimination on the grounds of disability…, not only violates universal human rights but also harms business performance and economic growth. Hopefully next time you take a hiring decision or spend your CSR budget or even define your next ESG roadmap or HR strategy, you may want to seriously look into the different and economically excluded Juan/juana.

***** Griselda Gay Gloria-santos is the Chair of the Financial Inclusion Committee of the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines. She is also the Regional Director for Southeast Asia at Water. org, a global NGO co-founded by Matt Damon and Gary White. She holds an MBA degree from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA. The opinion expressed herein does not necessarily reflect the views of these institutions, Water.org and Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines.