Gender and the Digital Economy: Perspectives from the Developing World (original) (raw)
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Around the world new ICTs have changed the lives of individuals, organizations and indeed, entire nations. No country and few communities are being left untouched by the 'information society' and given the state of recent inter-governmental and multistakeholder policy debates there is still a long way to go before civil rights are entrenched in this new society. This book is a collection of case studies about women and their communities in developing countries and how they have been influenced by ICTs. As this chapter and the following cases explain, ICTs and policies to encourage their development can have profound implications for women and men in terms of employment, education, health, environmental sustainability and community development. Policy is needed to ensure that investment in ICTs contributes to more equitable and sustainable development as these technologies are neither gender-neutral nor irrelevant to the lives of resource-poor women.
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Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have created new economic and social opportunities all over the world. Their use, however, continues to be governed by existing power relations whereby women frequently experience relative disadvantage. Amid this inequality are individuals and organisations that are working to use ICTs to further gender equality. These are the issues addressed by the BRIDGE Cutting Edge Pack on Gender and ICTs. The first section of this article consists of extracts from the Overview Report in the Pack. It describes ways in which women have been able to use ICTs to support new forms of information exchange, organisation, and empowerment. The second section, taken from the textbox ‘Telecentres: Some Myths’, describes three assertions which frequently lead to problems in all forms of investment in development-related information exchanges with poor or less powerful groups, not only those relating to telecentres and women.
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The lack of clarity of policy and the failure to create a link between policy statement and strategies on gender is a constraint to the promotion of ICTs and gender related issues. As a crucial development component of the revolutionary global knowledge economy, information and communication technologies have been hailed as possible tools to positively impact development efforts in both developing and developed countries (Steeves & Kwami, 2012; Sahlfeld, 2007; Chukwunonso & Aisha, 2012; Heeks, 2002). ICTs have permeated all areas of development, particularly communication, trade, and political development (O’Farrell, Norrish & Scott, 1999; Sarfo et al, 2011), and national policies in developing countries have begun considering them with greater interest. This notwithstanding, there continues to linger the challenge of divide, which is mostly in areas of access, gender and age (O’Connor, 2012; Geldof, 2011; Kwapong, 2008; Sarfo et al, 2011).
Gender and ICTs for Development. A global sourcebook
2005
series: • Advancing women's status: women and men together? M. de Bruyn (ed.) • Gender training. The source book. S. Cummings, H. van Dam and M. Valk (eds.) • Women's information services and networks. A global source book. S. Cummings, H. van Dam and M. Valk (eds.) • Institutionalizing gender equality. Commitment, policy and practice. A global source book H. van Dam, A. Khadar and M. Valk (eds.) • Gender perspectives on property and inheritance. A global source book S. Cummings, H. van Dam, A. Khadar and M. Valk (eds.) • Natural resources management and gender. A global source book H. van Dam, S. Cummings and M. Valk (eds.) • Gender, citizenship and governance. A global source book S. Cummings, H. van Dam and M. Valk (eds.)
Gender issues in the information society
2003
Women represent the main economic force in most developing countries. As economies become more and more information-driven, the issues of women's access to and use of ICTs is growing in importance for both 5 P r e f a c e developed and developing economies. The ease with which information and communication technologies can transmit and disseminate information for development is well recognized. But women's access for women to ICTs cannot be assumed to occur "naturally" when gender-blind approaches and technologies are implemented. As a result of profound, gendered applications and implications of ICTs in employment, education, training and other areas of life, women need encouragement and support to take their rightful place in the information revolution.
The Gender Digital Divide in Developing Countries
Empirical studies clearly show that women in the developing world have significantly lower technology participation rates than men; a result of entrenched socio-cultural attitudes about the role of women in society. However, as studies are beginning to show, when those women are able to engage with Internet technology, a wide range of personal, family and community benefits become possible. The key to these benefits is on-line education, the access to which sets up a positive feedback loop. This review gives an overview of the digital divide, before focusing specifically on the challenges women in developing countries face in accessing the Internet. Current gender disparities in Internet use will be outlined and the barriers that potentially hinder women’s access and participation in the online world will be considered. We will then look at the potential opportunities for women’s participation in a global digital society along with a consideration of current initiatives that have been developed to mitigate gender inequity in developing countries. We will also consider a promising avenue for future research.
Women's Studies International Forum, Volume 34, issue 6; p.479-489, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2011.07.001, 2011
The discussion about women's access to and use of digital Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in developing countries has been inconclusive so far. Some claim that women are rather technophobic and that men are much better users of digital tools, while others argue that women enthusiastically embrace digital communication. This article puts this question to an empirical test. We analyze data sets from 12 Latin American and 13 African countries from 2005 to 2008. This is believed to be the most extensive empirical study in this field so far. The results are surprisingly consistent and revealing: the reason why fewer women access and use ICT is a direct result of their unfavorable conditions with respect to employment, education and income. When controlling for these variables, women turn out to be more active users of digital tools than men. This turns the alleged digital gender divide into an opportunity: given women's affinity for ICT, and given that digital technologies are tools that can improve living conditions, ICT represents a concrete and tangible opportunity to tackle longstanding challenges of gender inequalities in developing countries, including access to employment, income, education and health services.