Gender Social Bonds in the Latin American Market

Abstract

Although issuances of sustainable debt are growing worldwide, there is a lack of studies that allow a better understanding the social bond issuances, particularly those with a gender focus, which are directly related to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals 5, 8, 9, and 10. This study addresses the identified knowledge gap by examining the overall state of the gender social bonds in the Latin American market between 2019 and 2022. The results revealed that a total of USD 1 billion was issued by 12 issuers conducting 14 issuances across six countries. Also, most issuances were financial corporations (58.4%) and supranational banks had a pivotal role in this market by being buyers and/or lead managers. As the first study conducted on this topic, this represents a milestone in sustainable finance research. Finally, this study will allow policy makers, regulators, and researchers to promote the issuance of gender social bonds.

New insights on social finance research in the sustainable development context

“…For example, governments and financial institutions issued social bonds as a mechanism to help individuals and firms, and thus, research on social finance gained momentum to consolidate as an important research topic within sustainable finance (Banistmo, 2021;Ministerio de Hacienda, 2021). In this way, gender social bonds, as a subset of social bonds, have the multipurpose of helping to close the gender gap in access to capital, reducing genderbased poverty, and helping promote gender equality (González-Ruiz et al, 2023). F I G U R E 2 Annual scientific production.…”

“…• Integration of social finance into the financial system: Social finance is increasingly integrated into the traditional financial system, as can be seen by the growing interest of banks, insurers, and other actors in the financial system in social finance. For instance, gender social bonds, social impact bonds, crowdfunding, and blockchain have been emerging as innovative financial mechanisms in the financial systems (Ascarya & Suharto, 2021;Bonfanti et al, 2024;González-Ruiz et al, 2023;Md Ariffin et al, 2023;Pitluck, 2023).…”

“…• Development of new financial mechanisms: Social finance has contributed to developing new financial instruments, such as social bonds, social impact funds, and crowdfunding platforms. These mechanisms allow investors to align their investments with social and environmental values González-Ruiz et al, 2023;Olson et al, 2022;Rizzi et al, 2018).…”