Purpose Gender-inclusive adoption of multipurpose national-identity smart cards (MNIS) is important to ensure gender equality, particularly in accessing public services offered by the card e.g. identity verification, healthcare, transit, banking, driving license, passport, etc. The aim is to study the gender differences in terms of the motivation and impediments of adopting MNIS to recommend gender-specific adoption strategies. Methodology The research framework is based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) with the added constructs of perceived credibility and anxiety. The data was collected through five hundred questionnaires from Malaysia (the MNIS pioneer) and analyzed using structural equation modeling. Findings The results show that females have significantly higher perceived credibility while males have significantly higher performance expectancy for MNIS. The correlation between performance expectancy and perceived credibility is significantly stronger among males. Practical implications Strategies recommended to policymakers include having social messages related to MNIS utility and convenience in campaigns targeting males while alleviating concerns over security and privacy for campaigns targeting females. Originality/value This is the first study that investigated the gender differences in adoption of MNIS by comparing the structural UTAUT models of both genders. The gender differences in MNIS adoption were explained using gender theories.

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