Understanding the Barriers to, and Impacts of, Women’s Cell Phone Adoption in India

Understanding the Barriers to, and Impacts of, Women’s Cell Phone Adoption in India

Increasingly, phones are crucial to participating in the modern economy. Yet twice as many Indian men as women own one.

EPoD Flickr

Increasingly, phones are crucial to participating in the modern economy. Yet twice as many Indian men as women own one.

Research shows that mobile phones provide a wide variety of benefits, improving both economic and social outcomes for users. Mobile technology helps producers and consumers access the best price for their products, and it connects workers to job opportunities and labor markets. In Kenya, mobile money has both reduced households’ vulnerability to economic shocks and lifted poor women out of poverty. And around the world, behavioral messaging through SMS and voice calls have improved behavior in domains including finance, education, and healthcare. 

Yet in India, fewer women have access to mobile phones, with 67% of men owning a phone while only 33% of women do. If mobile technologies are crucial to participation in the modern economy, there is a risk that India’s gender gap in mobile ownership will exacerbate pre-existing gender gaps in other areas, hinder economic growth, and limit the reach and impact of initiatives launched under the government’s “Digital India” campaign. Conversely, closing the gender gap in mobile technology could help connect women to vital information, services, and jobs, improving their well-being while catalyzing growth. It is therefore critical to understand why women aren’t engaging with mobile technology and how to reverse this trend.

EPoD researchers, along with researchers at Duke, Princeton, and USC and in collaboration with EPoD India at IFMR, have launched a new initiative focused on women and mobile technology. The project will build an evidence base on how men and women use mobile services differently, the socioeconomic benefits of women’s technological inclusion, barriers to women’s adoption of mobile phones and associated value added services, and effective strategies to address these barriers. An important focus is on the multiple, complex social realities faced by women and girls across India.

Principal Investigators:
Rohini Pande
Charity Troyer-Moore, Harvard University
Giorgia Barboni, University of Warwick
Erica Field, Duke University
Natalia Rigol, Harvard University
Simone Schaner, University of Southern California

This research is supported by:
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

This project is implemented by Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD) at the Harvard Kennedy School in collaboration with EPoD India at IFMR, a joint program by EPoD at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR).

Highlights

News |

EPoD researchers identify the leading causes of the mobile gender gap and propose directions for how to reduce it. 

Article |

What is driving India’s abnormally high gender gap in phone ownership? What can be done about it?

News |

Mobile phones could help unemployed women learn about jobs or flexible income generation opportunities.