Research to bridge the digital gender divide
In addition to their value in communication, social connection, and entertainment, smartphones and other mobile devices increasingly serve as portals to opportunity, information, and employment. But there is often a gender gap in access to mobile technology, particularly in parts of South Asia: in 2015–16, for example, only about 33 percent of Indian women owned or used mobile phones, compared to 67 percent of men.
Although norms against Indian women’s phone use are prevalent, government support for women’s access to phones may reduce these gender-biased views.
In 2017, a team including researchers from Inclusion Economics at Yale University and Inclusion Economics India Centre – in collaboration with researchers from Duke University, Harvard University, the University of Southern California, and the University of Warwick – launched a multi-pronged initiative to understand the sources of India’s digital gender gap and identify potential solutions. Leveraging experimental and quasi-experimental research in rural Chhattisgarh, a state in central India, the team is building evidence on the different ways in which men and women engage with mobile services, the socioeconomic consequences of women’s access to mobile technology, and how to overcome barriers to women’s adoption and use of mobile phones. A key objective of the research, which began collecting endline data in late 2021, is to understand how economic incentives and norms affect women’s mobile phone engagement in ways that may exacerbate, or reduce, the digital gender divide.
