8 Economic Barriers Responsible for India’s Gender Digital Divide

The mobile phone is one of the most widely used information and communication technologies in the developing world. For instance, in India, as of December 2013, there were more than 900 million mobile phone subscribers (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, 2014). However, in the male-dominated Indian society with 940 females per 1,000 males, only 30% of mobile phone owners were female, which indicates the presence of a gender digital divide in the country.

In Inequalities creating economic barriers to owning mobile phones in India Factors responsible for the gender digital divide, Devendra Potnis, assistant professor at the University of Tennessee, investigated the factors responsible for the inability of 245 female slum-dwellers in India, who earn around $2 a day, to own a mobile phone. More than 90% of the respondents experienced more than two economic barriers discussed below, which prevented them from owning some of the least expensive mobile phones worth $15 or so on installments of $1 a month.

1. Fluctuating low personal income
2. Low personal savings
3. Lack of financial support from husbands
4. Cost of owning and maintaining a mobile phone
5. Low household income
6. Majority of financial dependents in family
7. Unexpected and unforeseen family expenses
8. Inherited debt

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Education to Employment: Designing a system that works

Around the world, governments and businesses face a conundrum: high levels of youth unemployment and a shortage of job seekers with critical skills. How can a country successfully move its young people from education to employment? What are the challenges? Which interventions work? How can these be scaled up? These are the crucial questions.

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Education to employment

Young people today are three times as likely as their parents to be out of work. Yet many employers can’t find people with the right entry-level skills to fill their jobs. How to close the gap? In this video, McKinsey directors Diana Farrell and Mona Mourshed share insights from our research with 8,000 stakeholders. We also profile two innovative organizations—one in India and one in the United States—that are pioneering new approaches to successfully transition greater numbers of students from education into employment.

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