Gendered Perspectives on the Digital Divide, IT Education and Workforce Participation in Kenya (original) (raw)
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A policy framework for bridging the gender devide in digital technology courses and careers in Kenya
Brookings Institution , 2023
Kenya’s digital technology advancements—chief among them the mobile money transfer application referred to as Mpesa—has led to the country’s status as an emerging digital economy. However, the long strides in the move toward a fully-fledged digital economy are not reflected in the digital technology workforce with regard to gender balance. While digital technology careers are highly touted as the jobs of the future, women occupy less than 30 percent of digital technology positions in Kenya. The root cause of the problem can be traced to disadvantages that girls and young women accumulate throughout their years in education. This study takes a qualitative approach in trying to identify the root causes for the exclusion of girls and young women from digital technology courses at all levels of education—namely lower primary, upper primary, junior high school, senior high school, and tertiary level in both rural and urban communities. The study identifies various cumulative factors that contribute to fewer women taking up digital technology courses, such as: inadequate infrastructure; insufficient staffing and training of digital technology personnel at learning institutions; the negative impact of gendered social norms; poor advocacy of digital technology careers and the absence of vocational counseling; and the lack of women role models. To increase the number of women in digital technology careers, we must improve institutional digital technology infrastructure at all levels of education, enhance the training of digital technology personnel within all levels of education, build girls’ interest in digital technology-related courses from the earliest years, increase digital technology advocacy and awareness among girls, and enhance vocational counseling on digital technology careers
International Journal of Innovative Research and Development (IJIRD). 5(7):328–339., 2016
This study is an attempt to understand the challenges in access and utilisation of ICTs across gender in rural Kenya. Technology is an engine for economic growth. Strong links have been made between use of specific technologies and growth. Failure to give priority to ICT strategies that enable developing countries to develop their national infrastructures will exacerbate the gap between rich and poor. This study is pegged on the premise that improving women’s access to technology has the potential to spur their economic advancement and stimulate broader economic growth. Regrettably, technology has been underused in unlocking women’s economic opportunities in Kenya. Real access to technology is one of the key elements necessary for integrating technology into society. The key issue here is whether the technology in question is available, physically accessible and affordable. An acute lack of infrastructure in Kenya seriously limits opportunities for using ICTs for economic and social development. Women have less income, education, time, mobility, and face religious and cultural constraints that restrict their access to, and use of, technology. Rural women are more disadvantaged than younger, more literate or wealthier urban women. Women are poorly placed to benefit from the knowledge economy because they have less access to scientific and technical education, and less access to skills training and development. Barriers to universal access are not only about the availability of telecommunications infrastructure and computing equipment, but also barriers to individual access, which may be educational and socio-cultural. The potential to advance women economically may be the most exciting transformative feature of technology. Empowering women and improving the efficiency of their work is critical for reducing poverty. Mounting evidence confirms that women’s improved economic status produces many positive economic and welfare outcomes for children, families, and societies. Through a comprehensive desk review of the literature available on ICTs access and utilisation globally, in Africa and narrowing down to the Kenyan case, this study advances an argument that African women, long deprived of information, education and training can look to advances in information technology to bring learning to their doorsteps. It further argues that Kenyan women cannot be left behind and more so the ones in the rural areas. Technologies, particularly those in the global ICT revolution, give women many opportunities for economic advancement. But without the skills to use the technologies, women can remain on the lowest levels of the economic ladder. Kenya has a Devolved system of Government at the County level that is still in its infancy. This study posits that if the Devolved Governments in Kenya can put appropriate structures and policies in place to capture the digital explosion and attempt to bridge the gender digital divide, then ICTs can promote women’s economic advancement by improving the productivity and quality of women’s work and generating new employment opportunities. In a nutshell, Kenya’s County Governments are progressively emerging as the new platforms for devolving digital opportunities for inclusion for all.
THE DIGITAL SKILLS CRISIS: ENGENDERING TECHNOLOGY-EMPOWERING WOMEN IN CYBERSPACE
European Journal of Social Sciences Studies, 2020
This paper examines the latest research on the digital skills crisis, focusing on the factors that contribute to digital exclusion. Through an extensive analysis of current literature on the digital divide, the authors discuss digital skills gaps, namely the exclusion of a sizeable part of the workforce from the digital market economy—and women in particular. Studies indicate that exclusion from the digital market is augmented and reinforced when combining the gender dimension with other exclusionary factors such as disability, age, race and socioeconomic background. Research confirms that the gender imbalance in ICT and related sectors persists today, despite decades of equal opportunity policies, legislation and government initiatives. Women are still underrepresented and digitally excluded and efforts to attract, recruit and retain girls and women in ICT and STEM seem to be failing, reinforcing the gender gaps: participation gap, pay gap, and leadership gap, a result of the deep-rooted gender order reflected in the latest Global Gender Gap Report and Index. A growing body of research of the twenty-first shows that inspiring girls and women into technology—increasing the talent pool in ICT and STEM— requires engendering technology, eliminating gender stereotypes, and raising the profile of female role models and mentors. Studies repeatedly argue that engendering technology entails women’s agency and economic empowerment. Accordingly, the authors include recommendations from inspirational role models and mentors, three successful women in ICT, STEM and Information Society who have made a difference. All three, following a series of semi-structured interviews, propose engendering technology to increase the female talent pool in addition to engendering STEM education, that is to say, including the gender dimension. -------------------------------------------------------- Keywords: Engendering technology, Digital divide, Digital exclusion, Gender gaps, Disability, Age, Skills gap, Women entrepreneurs, Leadership gap, Digital inequality, Gender devaluation, Digital economy
Gender Issues in Information Technology
RESEARCH PAPER, 2013
The contribution of information technology (IT) cannot be underscored in the current century. Information technology is driving everything and has reduced the whole world into a global village. There is a low participation of females in information technology as compared to males due to their gender and roles. Gender is a social construct defining differentiated roles of males and females. Gender equity is promoting equal opportunity and fair treatment for males and females. Acquisition and application of information technology requires that one creates time and has resources. At work places rarely do organizations spare time to train their human resources on information technology. This means one has to learn information technology during free time. People with more roles to perform outside their daily work tend to be disadvantaged and thus lag behind in information technology. In Africa, gender roles are clearly defined. Females play most of the family chores that eat into their time heavily. This affects their technological advancement. The paper seeks to examine how roles ascribed to gender affect their acquisition and use of information technology. It will also assess whether gender equity as advocated by affirmative action has had an impact in bridging the gap between men and women in information technology.