The triple glass ceiling: FinTech gender inequalities

Abstract

While FinTech gets promoted as an innovative and progressive solution to meeting financial needs globally, it is afflicted by pervasive gender inequalities, only recently noticed in research. To explore these gender inequalities at the core of FinTech, we use a mixed-methods approach, combining data on 100 leading FinTech firms and 15 interviews with FinTech professionals, collected in the latter half of 2021. We argue that women in FinTech face the ‘triple glass ceiling’ at the intersection of financial, technological, and entrepreneurial gender inequalities. Our sample shows that women account for only 7.69% of (co-)founders, 18.2% of executive committee members, and merely 4.04% of FinTech companies are led by a woman. Gendered stereotypes and a privileging of masculine performances produce significant barriers to women entering and progressing within FinTech. Discriminatory practices are overt and implicit, everyday and exceptional, micro and acute. Shattering the ‘triple glass ceiling’ in FinTech represents an immense challenge.

Keywords

• entrepreneurship
• finance
• FinTech
• gender inequalities
• technology