Article
Breaking The Financial Literacy Myth: Why Knowledge Alone Is Not Enough for Women's Financial Empowerment
Financial literacy is widely promoted as a universal pathway to women’s financial empowerment, yet empirical evidence consistently reports weak and inconsistent effects on women’s FWB. This research challenges the prevailing dominant neoliberal assumption that financial knowledge automatically translates into financial agency. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice and a critical feminist lens, we reconceptualize financial empowerment as a process of capital conversion embedded within gendered social and institutional fields. Using mixed-methods data from 180 women respondents in India, we test a mechanism-based model in which FL operates through FSE (habitus), socially embedded capital, and along with institutional access (field conditions). financial literacy does not exert a direct effect on FWB; its influence mediated fully by these mechanisms. We further identify an income–empowerment paradox, whereby women’s income contribution reduces financial well-being in the absence of decision-making power. The study advances financial inclusion and feminist finance literatures by theorizing empowerment as a socially embedded and institutionally shaped process instead of an individual, offering a shift from literacy-centric interventions toward ecosystem-based empowerment strategies.