Democratizing Finance? Fintech, Participation, and the Reorganization of Inequality

Abstract

This thesis studies if the emergence of financial technologies like Cryptocurrency and Buy Now, Pay Later services has widened financial participation or led to the repackaging of inequalities seen in traditional financial markets. Using the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED), this study pools response data from 2021-2024 to compare fintech participation with traditional financial participation across three dimensions: who participates, how participation relates to financial confidence and well-being, and whether prior participation is associated with later financial well-being. In doing so, the main findings show how fintech does not operate uniformly, suggesting that different pathways within fintech produce unique patterns of stratification, participant profiles, and inequalities. Sociologically, this thesis contributes to research on digital finance by showing that expanded access does not necessarily lead to democratization, and that new financial technologies may instead reproduce inequality through new instruments.