In Simple Words
Think of a buffet where diners leave the bread and rice untouched because their cupboards at home are already full, but eagerly grab a rare dessert they cannot get anywhere else. Low demand for standard credit or savings indicates those pantries were already served, whereas high demand for insurance shows a genuine empty shelf in their household safety net.
Migrant households near Cabanatuan
- No education or product-access offer
- Group used for comparison
- Financial-product access offer
- Insurance take-up 25.1 percentage points higher
Philippines encouragement trial. Product menu and recruitment changed during rollout; low credit/savings take-up does not prove no access barriers.
See source →Research question
Development programs frequently assume that low-income migrant families face blanket access barriers across all formal financial services. Identifying which specific financial product markets actually suffer from binding access constraints is essential for targeted policy interventions.
Participants
N = 1,800 transnational households in Cabanatuan City and surrounding localities, Philippines.
Study Design
Randomized controlled trial offering formal microloans (ASKI), bank savings accounts (BPI BPinoy), and micro-insurance (ASKI life/accident insurance).
Results
Take-up for offered savings accounts was only ~1 percentage point (9 total individuals) and microloans near zero (2 individuals), whereas micro-insurance take-up surged by 25.1 to 28.0 percentage points (p < 0.01).
Takeaway
Prioritize financial access interventions specifically on underserved risk-coping products like micro-insurance rather than expanding existing formal credit and savings access in saturated markets.
Source and citation
See source →Read alongside the research
Plain-English glossary
Original explanations, informed by the references below. Examples are illustrations, not data from the studies above. The research text stays unchanged.
- Percentage points
The difference between two percentages.
ExampleA rise from 40% to 50% is 10 percentage points. Relative to the starting value, that is a 25% increase.
Office for National Statistics · Percentages ↗Read more about percentage points →- Randomized controlled trial
A study that uses chance, like drawing lots, to decide who receives each option being compared. Researchers compare the groups’ outcomes to estimate the effect of those options.
ExampleA lottery assigns volunteers to a training programme or a comparison group. Researchers then compare their outcomes.
GET-IT glossary · Randomized study ↗Read more about randomized controlled trial →