Using Big Data for Insights Into the Gender Digital Divide for Girls
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UNICEF Gender and Innovation Evidence briefs - Insights into the gender digital divide for girls Using big data for insights into the gender digital divide for girls: A discussion paper UNICEF Gender and Innovation Evidence briefs - Insights into the gender digital divide for girls Using big data for insights into the gender digital divide for girls: A discussion paper Alexandra Tyers-Chowdhury and Gerda Binder UNICEF Ridhi Kashyap and Mariana De Araujo Cunha University of Oxford Reham Al Tamime University of Southampton Ingmar Weber Qatar Computing Research Institute Introduction: the gender digital 3 divide for adult women Using big data as a methodology to 8 evidence the gender digital divide Big data and the gender digital 12 divide for adolescent girls: key findings Key insights from data analysis 13 Conclusions 16 References 18 Using big data for insights into the gender digital divide for girls: A discussion paper Introduction the gender digital divide for adult women Digital technology is rapidly evolving and increasingly Unfortunately, a large gender indispensable in our lives. This is true not only for adults, but also divide disfavours women in digital for children and adolescents. For young people, digital technology access and use. provides tools to engage in In recent years, a large increase entrepreneurship, network with in primary data has widened peers, and access critical health, understanding of this gender career and financial information. digital divide for the adult For women and girls, digital women cohort. Key statistics and adoption and use offers an methodologies are shown in opportunity to overcome hurdles Box 1. However, the gender they may face in the physical digital divide community world. It can offer skills needed of knowledge is still to excel in education and work, overwhelmingly focused on as well as increased access to women over the age of 18. the digital jobs of the future.1 There is much less data and evidence on the girl cohort, leaving a significant knowledge gap regarding the digital reality and shifts for today’s generation 1 Tyers, A and Banyan Global, 2020 of girls. 3 Using big data for insights into the gender digital divide for girls: A discussion paper Box 1 The gender digital divide for adult women More than 50% of the world’s women are offline.2 This percentage is even larger There are also stark regional in low-and middle-income differences. For instance, the countries (LMICs), where the gender gap in mobile ownership internet penetration rate for is much larger in South Asia adult women is 41%, compared (23%) and sub-Saharan Africa to 53% for men.3 (13%).5 There are also differences in device ownership: women are more likely than men to borrow or share mobile phones (often within a household or from a Roughly 393 million adult women male family member) and are rarely the primary owners of a in LMICs do not own mobile device.6 Women are more likely to have simpler phones that do not phones. Globally, women are 8% support mobile internet use, and women are 20% less likely than less likely to own a mobile phone men to own a smartphone.7 4 than men. This gender gap in digital access is accompanied by a gender gap in meaningful digital use. Women tend to use mobiles and the internet differently than men. For example, they often own less expensive and sophisticated handsets, use a smaller range of digital services (often primarily voice and SMS), use digital services less frequently and less intensively, and use the internet less frequently and for fewer things.8 These disparities in usage limit women’s access to the full range of opportunities offered by digital connectivity.9 2 ITU, 2019 3 ITU, 2019 4 GSMA Connected Women, 2020 5 GSMA Connected Women, 2020 6 EQUALS, 2019 7 GSMA Connected Women, 2020 8 Web Foundation, 2015; Web Foundation, 2016; Web Foundation, 2020; LIRNEasia, 2019; GSMA Connected Women, 2020 9 Tyers, A and Banyan Global, 2020 4 Using big data for insights into the gender digital divide for girls: A discussion paper The main data sources for the adult women cohort are:10 • Annual quantitative surveys ITU, the Web Foundation • The Multi-Indicator Cluster from GSMA Connected measures the digital gender Surveys (MICS), a household Women across up to 21 LMICs gap as the difference survey program on children since 2018. The GSMA defines between men and women as and women conducted by the digital gender gap as the a proportion of the rate for UNICEF, which has also difference between men and women, making it female- started collecting sex- women as a proportion of the centered. disaggregated ICT data in 118 rate for men. countries in Wave 4. • After Access, which • National statistics publishes nationally • In addition, Facebook’s 2020 offices that report representative primary Survey on Gender Equality at to the International quantitative datasets across Home captures household Telecommunication Union 16 countries in Africa, Asia gender dynamics in 500,000 (ITU) for its annual Facts and and Latin America (although households during the Figures quantitative report not annually). COVID-19 pandemic using (although only 69 countries online surveys, indicating an submit sex-disaggregated • The Demographic and interest in this space among data). Like the GSMA, the Health Surveys (DHS), which big tech companies. ITU defines the digital has started collecting gender gap as the difference nationally representative between men and women as sex-disaggregated data a proportion of the rate for since Phase 7 of the survey men. programme on internet use (if someone has ever • The Web Foundation, which used it, or has used it in the publishes quantitative and past 12 months) and mobile qualitative primary data ownership in over 80 LMICs sets in a few select LMICs countries. These generally (although not annually). cover women aged 15-49 as Unlike the GSMA and the well as men. However, despite increased In addition, data sets are often availability of data about adult reliant on end user surveys, women, there are challenges in which can be time-consuming methodology. Most research is and expensive. Because of limited to relatively small-scale this, the surveys are often not studies of selected countries run regularly and so are not rather than studies at a global longitudinal, which means it is scale. In many countries, no difficult to track changes over sex-disaggregated data exists at time and measure progress in all. Measurement methods also closing the gender digital divide. differ between data sets, leading to different data points. Many data sets focus on digital access only rather than both digital access and use, while many do not collect qualitative data (which means that data lacks nuance and depth). Quantitative 10 Tyers, A and Banyan Global. 2020 data can highlight what is happening, while qualitative data can highlight why it is happening. For more detailed information, see USAID’s Gender Digital Divide Desk Review Report. 5 Using big data for insights into the gender digital divide for girls: A discussion paper The only multi-country study The study indicates a pattern of which only samples adults. In that examines the gender digital lower digital access and use for addition, GSMA defines a mobile divide for adolescent girls is the girls, similar to that for women. user as someone who has sole or 2018 Girl Effect and Vodafone main use of a SIM card,11 though Foundation ‘Real girls, real However, there is little global laws in many countries prevent lives: connected’ study, which insight beyond this. Some of anyone under the age of 18 from was the first comprehensive this is due to methodology. purchasing a SIM card.12 study into adolescent girls and The vast majority of the global mobile technology. It drew on statistics quoted in Box 1 come experiences of more than 3,000 from survey data such as GSMA girls and boys from 25 countries Connected Women, whose - predominantly LMICs in Africa, studies only sample adults Asia, the Middle East and over the age of 18. This is partly North and South America - to because GSMA studies draw understand how girls access or on data collected by the GSMA try to access mobile phones and Intelligence team as part of the internet. their annual Consumer Survey, SIM registration laws also present a challenge for leveraging other data sources to understand digital adoption for girls under the age of 18. Many statistics bases use The other often-quoted source Even the Girl Effect and Vodafone mobile (or mobile internet) of gender digital data is the Foundation study, which subscriber data to understand ITU, which collects data from expressly looks at adolescents, digital penetration, but this data national statistics offices. While has some limitations in that its is rarely sex-disaggregated the ITU reports some youth data insights are very limited for and is unlikely to include people (e.g., aged 15–24), it is not clear non-mobile or non-internet girl under 18 because they do whether their sex-disaggregated users. This is because the not appear in statistics that data covers adult women study sample only covered use SIM registration as a proxy only (aged 18 and over) or if it current mobile users, and did not for access. includes girls aged 15 and over include the perspectives of (as other ITU data sets would non-mobile users. suggest). The ITU also does not appear to have publicly available age- and sex-disaggregated data for girls aged 15–18. 11 GSMA Connected Women, 2020 12 GSMA, 2018 6 Using big data for insights into the gender digital divide for girls: A discussion paper It can also be challenging time-consuming, and may act as to conduct research with a deterrent for researchers.