Gender
Panel 3: Bridging the Subcontinent’s Gender Digital Divide
The Gender Digital Divide in Rural Pakistan: To Measure and to Bridge It
by Karin Astrid Siegmann*
While in Pakistan during the past few years, the number of mobile phone users and computer applications has increased tremendously; the rural areas are significantly under-served. In a population estimated around 160 million, 68% live in villages. 90% of the ICT-related infrastructure is installed in urban areas, though. More than two-thirds of the population is thus catered to with just over a million phone lines.
Currently available evidence indicates the potential of ICTs for women’s empowerment Employment in ICT-related companies has often benefited women’s employment. ICT applications have translated into improved access to financial information for female users, amongst others, supporting their economic empowerment. Also, ICTs provide opportunities to bypass the traditional dependence of women producers on male-dominated market structures, including their reliance on “middle-men” for marketing. Apart from its role in employment creation and business promotion, ICTs have provided innovative ways for women and girls to obtain access to education and skills and facilitate women and girls’ access to health-related information and facilities.
Considering these opportunities for women and girls’ empowerment through the use of ICTs, access to and use of them may be of crucial importance to address the challenge for gender equality in Pakistan. However, currently in Pakistan, there is a lack of information and research about gender-specific access to and use of ICTs. Available statistics do not cover access to and utilisation of ICTs. The scattered research on the role of ICTs in Pakistan’s development does not cover gender dimensions. Socio-cultural barriers make it likely, though, ICT penetration in Pakistan is delinked from benefits for women and girls, especially in rural areas.
In order to address the knowledge gap regarding the extent of the gender digital divide and the special needs of women and girls regarding access to and utilisation of ICTs, the paper measures the extent of the gender digital divide in rural Pakistan and identifies the impact of liberalization of telecommunication services thereon. The research techniques applied include gender specific focus group discussions, structured questionnaires and key informant interviews. Lessons will be drawn regarding appropriate technology and governance conducive for improved access of women and girls to ICTs.
* Dr. Karin Astrid Siegmann is a Research Fellow at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Islamabad, Pakistan. She holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Bonn, Germany. Her specialization is in gender and globalization.
Specifying Gender in the IT Policy of Pakistan: An Activity Theory Based Case Study
By Imran Sikandar Baloch*
The challenges to women’s access to ICTs in many developing countries stem from, among others, social attitudes towards female usage of technology, balancing between role of a mother and a worker. There is a social tendency to exclude women from decision-making which affects both their lives and their participation in the paid work force. Unfortunately, the exclusion of women from ICT runs deep in Government policies, thus depriving half the population from the potential benefits of ICTs.
This paper analyses Pakistan’s IT policy and tries to measure the inspirations and change one ICT initiative has brought in the lives of some women. The main argument is that the impact of ICT on women in developing world can not take place unless policies are aligned with local factors like social relationships, cultural and historical context. Change and impact is measured in the light of contextual local factors like self efficacy, gender biased social constraints and inspirations to form networks of learners. Vygotsky’s Activity Theory is used to understand how current and graduate female learners of the Community Technology Learning Centres (CTLC) of Thatta are construing the meaning of ICT in their minds and what change it has brought to their lives.
The second part of the paper, looks at Pakistan’s IT policy, with gender perspective, and in the light of the findings a case is built up that failure to specify targets in terms of gender based benefits, in such national documents fails to bring any sustainable benefits.
The paper recommends development of unconventional context specific gender indicators for measuring the impact of ICT on the women and thus incorporating these indicators in the IT Policy of Pakistan. Primary source of data consists of policy documents from the Ministry of IT, Government of Pakistan and the National Commission for Human Development. Moreover, relevant literature regarding Activity Theory has been consulted. For secondary source of data, current and graduate learners of CTLC were put through survey questionnaires and interviews.
* Imran Sikandar Baloch is a civil servant with the Federal Government of Pakistan and has recently concluded M.Sc in Educational Studies (E-Learning) from the University of Oxford, UK.
Overcoming the Gender Digital Divide: Success story of Grameen Telecom Bangladesh
By Aneel Salman*
Some visionary intellectuals around the world have defined human life as a creative synthesis or a seamless web of ideas and practices emanating from different disciplines. A researcher on telecommunication therefore has to embrace ideas from technical, scientific, economic, social and political disciplines, where linear algorithms are often substituted with multi-directional models overlapping the boundaries of its constituent factors. The social constructionist account of technology is hence multi-directional when viewed from different disciplines. In a multidisciplinary technological development project various social groups shape the individual artifacts or the total technological system towards perfection. With every social group involved in shaping new technology there are typically several associated problems and their perceived solutions. This paper on Grameen Telecom’s initiatives in bringing a shared concept of telecommunication usage by the poor villagers of Bangladesh is an attempt to identify various social forces that interact in the evolution of a developmental project in the third world.
Convergence among telecommunication, computing, the media and the development of technologies associated with the internet have brought Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) in the forefront of social decision making. Public policy makers in order to foster private investments prefer to join the bandwagon by deregulating existing telecommunication systems. But in this race some countries have fallen back and are being marginalized from the prospects of growth and development due to lack of access to telecommunication services. The Village Phone (VP) system initiated by Grameen Telecom (a subsidiary of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh) through its credit schemes is claimed to be the first instance of any NGO involved in rural telecom development through a franchisee system. The objectives of the Grameen VP system were mainly twofold. First, franchise members, predominantly women will earn their living by selling telecom services and second, villagers would benefit by purchasing these services. It is also a step outside the conventional empowering mechanisms of farm related activities prevalent in most of the development projects in South Asia. The VP system propelled by the village women is, thus, a positive move away from conventional methods of the rich growing richer by taking advantage of new technologies. The interdependence between telecommunication and social development in rural Bangladesh along with the equitable distribution of benefits of telecom services form part of this paper.
* Aneel Salman is a Fulbright Scholar and PhD candidate in Ecological Economics Values and Policy (EEVP) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Troy, NY, USA.
Empowerment of Women Amidst Gender Digital Divide in India
by Velan Nirmala*
Female work participation in the services sector in India has risen since the 1990s, due to increased trade and investments in the Information Communication Technology (ICT) sector. In the sector, females are not only engaged in the production industries and as IT engineers, but are also engaged in various BPO centres. With the prominence of the IT sector under globalization, more women are getting job opportunities within the country and abroad; are earning high salaries, even at par with their male counterparts; supporting their families; and also commanding a respectable position within the family and in the society, owing to their professional employment. However, they constitute only around a quarter of the work force in the sector, and are concentrated in software related activities. This is partly attributable to the gender gap in education, decision making power, social norms and restrictions on mobility in the country. Given these developments, the objectives of this paper are: i) to overview the performance of the IT sector in India during 1990–91 to 2005–06; ii) to examine the trend and composition in gender-wise work participation in the IT sector; and iii) to analyse the factors that encourage/affect gender-wise work participation in general, and the total IT professionals in particular, leading to empowerment of women in India.
The present paper is based on data collected from various issues of NASSCOM, Dataquest, National Sample Survey (NSSO) Rounds, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Bulletins, Economic Survey and National Accounts Statistics of India. The study covers the economic reforms period and the successive years from 1990-91 to 2005-06, during which the IT sector registered remarkable growth. The methodology employed is simple averages, percentages, ratios, Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) multiple and single regressions in log forms.
The results of the study reveal that the Indian IT sector has recorded an impressive growth during 1990–91 to 2005–06, in terms of revenue generated, exports, and employment. The gender composition in the sector shows the number of women engaged in the IT and related occupations to be rising substantially over the study period. However, their percentage share in the IT workforce fluctuates around a quarter. The preference of IT occupation activities also varies for females from that of the males in favor of the software sectors. These factors are attributable to the gender digital divide in the country. Given the fact that the structured growth in information sector is both labour deepening and thickening, the IT sector can contribute to sustainable development of the country through increased employment opportunities and the non-discriminatory wages offered. The forecasted demand–supply gap in labour in the sector can be filled-in by drawing more women into the IT sector, with the aid of necessary education and skill development, thus contributing to their empowerment.
* Velan Nirmala is Professor and Head of the Department of Economics at the Pondicherry University, Kalapet, Pondicherry, South India.
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