The Mobile Gender Gap Report (2022) by GSMA (Groupe Speciale Mobile Association), released last week, highlighted that the gender gap in mobile internet usage in South Asia, and across low and middle income countries overall, is being driven by India. The reason behind this is the country's large population and the significant digital divide accentuated by the report.
GSMA is a London-based telecommunication body that represents the interest of mobile service providers and the global mobile market as a whole. The members of this body include, mobile operators, device and handset manufacturers, software providers, equipment suppliers, and internet firms.
The GSMA report analyses the mobile ownership and mobile internet usage in low and middle-income countries of Asia (India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia), Africa (Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal), and Latin America (Guatemala, Mexico). In all these countries, a sample of approximately 1,000 male and female adults aged 18 and over were surveyed, with the exception of India where the sample was approximately 2,000.
The report delves into the scale of gender gap in the usage of mobile and internet in each region. Furthermore, it enlists recommendations for stakeholders, policymakers, mobile operators, and NGOs for bridging the gender gap.
What does the report say about India?
According to the report, 81 percent of men and 72 percent of women in India owned a mobile phone as of 2022, translating to a gender gap of 11 percent. While 52 percent of Indian males use mobile internet, women lag far behind, with only 31 percent using mobile internet, according to the report. Thus, the effective gender gap in the usage of mobile internet amongst Indian men and women is 40 percent.
The report suggests that 23 percent of Indian men own a basic phone, 4 percent own a feature phone and rest 48 percent own a smartphone. The corresponding figures in case of women are 28 percent, 3 percent and 29 percent, respectively. "In India, 19% of female mobile internet users are only accessing it on someone else’s device compared to 8% of men," the report read.
The report points out that the gender gap in India had been closing between 2018 and 2020 due to shifting market dynamics, the availability of inexpensive handsets, and a significant surge in female mobile internet consumption during the Covid pandemic. However, the trend reversed in 2021 as men increased their use of mobile internet.
“Our latest data shows that progress has stalled again, with no change in mobile internet use for either men or women," the report noted.
The report attributed this trend to the supply chain disruptions since the onset of the pandemic, the declining economy, and increasing inflation, which has made "accessing the internet less affordable and accessible for people in India."
Hence, owing to the large population and sizeable disparity highlighted in the report, India largely drives the gender gap in mobile internet use across South Asia and other low and middle-income countries, surveyed in the report.
Other key highlights
-The report suggests that more women in low- and middle-income countries are using mobile internet than ever before, but their rate of adoption has slowed down for the second year in a row. While 61 percent of women across these countries now use mobile internet, only 60 million women started using mobile internet in 2022 and 75 million in 2021.
- The gender gap in mobile internet remains relatively unchanged as women in low- and middle-income countries are 19 percent less likely than men to use it, which translates into around 310 million fewer women than men.
- There are 900 million women in these countries who are still not using mobile internet, almost two-thirds of whom live in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, as per the report.
- The gender gap in smartphone ownership remains unchanged for the second year in a row, with women in these countries being 17 percent less likely than men to own a smartphone. This percentage translates to around 250 million fewer women owning a smartphone as compared to men.
- According to the report, in order to bridge the mobile internet gender gap in low- and middle-income countries by 2030, an estimated 810 million women must start using mobile internet. On average, this equates to 100 million women per year.