The effect of financial inclusion on open defecation and sharing of toilet facilities among households in Ghana

Globally, and in Ghana, a lot of people do practice open defecation as well as share toilet facilities with other households. Meanwhile, open defecation in particular, is associated with numerous negative health and economic effects. To this end, a number of empirical studies have been conducted on the determinants of access to sanitation facilities among households in Ghana. Nonetheless, while financial inclusion (sustainable ways of ensuring easier accessibility to cheap and useful financial products and services among individuals/firms) can enhance the ability of households or individuals to afford toilet facilities, hence, could help in curbing open defecation and sharing of toilet facilities among households, the previous studies on Ghana did not pay attention to it. This study therefore uses data from the 7th round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS7) to examine the association of financial inclusion with open defecation and sharing of toilet facilities among households in Ghana. The binary logit regression is used as the empirical estimation technique. The results show that, financial inclusion in general is associated with lesser likelihood of open defecation and sharing of toilet facilities among households in Ghana after controlling for welfare quintile, urban or rural residence and other covariates. Moreover, while informal financial inclusion is statistically insignificant, formal financial inclusion is found to be associated with reduced open defecation and sharing of toilet facilities among households. Thus, in the attempt to eliminate open defecation as well as reduce the sharing of toilet facilities among households in Ghana, conscious efforts should be devoted towards enhancing formal financial inclusion.