Digitization: A prerequisite for Women Empowerment

Authors

Abstract

Objective: - Women's empowerment plays a crucial role in the overall development of any society positively impacting the daily lives of women. Digitization, which is the primary focus of digital literacy, is the most essential skill required for the empowerment of women. The primary objective of the present study is to evaluate the level of awareness, of rural and urban women on digitization. Besides, the researcher also checked their awareness level on Govt digitization schemes, usage of facilities of mobile phones; internet usage to know the present market price of various products and facilities of the financial market.

Methods:  A questionnaire was administered to the respondents to collect the data from villages and tehsils of Guna District, Madhya Pradesh, India. Multiple regression analysis was used to study the impact of independent variables (location, age, education, and working) on the dependent variables

 Results: The findings revealed that among all variables, differences in education levels appear to exert a significant force on the awareness level of these respondents. Apart from that location and age also influenced the awareness of women on digitization.

Conclusion: It is evident from the studies that more work is conducted in the western world and with western perspectives and frameworks on digital literacy and empowerment. Government has taken initiatives to promote Digital Literacy, but are they really helping in boosting Digital empowerment in the Indian context? More efforts are called for to provide importance and exposure to technology. More and more programs should be linked to technology are required and should be organized. Familiarity with computers and other technological devices will not only make women technologically literate but will likewise enable them to become economically stable.

Author Biography

Rachna Chaturvedi, JAYPEE UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, GUNA

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR (SG)

DEPARTMENT OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

References

M., Dhanamalar; S., Preethi; and S., Yuvashree (2020). Impact of Digitization on Women’s Empowerment: A Study of Rural and Urban Regions in India. Journal of International Women's Studies, 21(5), 107-112.

Bala, S., & Singhal, P. (2018). Gender digital divide in India: A case of inter-regional analysis of Uttar Pradesh. Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society

Lee Dayoung (2009), The impact of status of women in India, Department of Economics, University of Stanford, Stanford, CA 94305, USA

https://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/GSMA-The-Mobile-Gender-Gap-Report-2019.pdf,Accessed on 4th Jan 2021

Joshi, A., Malhotra, B., Amadi, C., Loomba, M., Misra, A., Sharma,S & Amatya, J. (2020). Gender and the Digital Divide Across Urban Slums of New Delhi, India: Cross-Sectional Study. Journal of medical Internet research, 22(6), e14714.

Morahan-Martin, J. (1998). The gender gap in Internet use: Why men use the Internet more than women—a literature review. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 1(1), 3-10.)

Sorgner, A., Bode, E., Krieger-Boden, C., Aneja, U., Coleman, S., Mishra, V., & Robb, A. (2017). The effects of digitalization on gender equality in the G20 economies. Kiel: Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Mejova, Y., Gandhi, H. R., Rafaliya, T. J., Sitapara, M. R., Kashyap, R., & Weber, I. (2018, June). Measuring subnational digital gender inequality in india through gender gaps in facebook use. In Proceedings of the 1st ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies (pp. 1-5).

Cummings, C. and Tam O’Neil. (2015). Do digital information and communications technologies increase the voice and influence of women and girls. A rapid review of the evidence. Overseas Development Institute

Nasah, A., DaCosta, B., Kinsell, C., & Seok, S. (2010). The digital literacy debate: an investigation of digital propensity and information and communication technology. Educational Technology Research and Development, 58(5), 531-555

ZUHYLE, S. CAREER SUMMARY LIRNEasia (Jan 2010 to date) Research Manager [LIRNEasia is a regional information and communication technology (ICT) policy and regulation think tank active across the Asia Pacific–http://lirneasia. net].

UNCTAD, “United nations conference on trade and development,†Review of Maritime Transport, UNCTAD, Geneva, Switzerland, 2014.

Z. Laizu, J. Armarego, and F. Sudweeks, “Cognitive change in women’s empowerment in rural Bangladesh,†in Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Computer and Information Technology (ICCIT), pp. 277–282, Dhaka, Bangladesh, December 2010

Z. Laizu, J. Armarego, and F. Sudweeks, “The role of ICT in women’s empowerment in rural Bangladesh,†in Proceedings of the Cultural Attitudes Towards Communication and Technology 2010, pp. 217–230, Murdoch, Australia, June 2010

Doron, “Mobile persons: cell phones, gender and the self in North India,†The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, vol. 13, no. 5, pp. 414–433, 2012

Islam, M. K., & Slack, F. (2016, March). Women in rural Bangladesh: Empowered by access to mobile phones. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (pp. 75-84)

Singhal, S. (2017). Demonetisation and E-banking in India. International Journal of New Technology and Research, 3(1)

Lentz, R. G., & Oden, M. D. (2001). Digital divide or digital opportunity in the Mississippi Delta region of the US Telecommunications Policy, 25, 291-313.

Watkins, J., Kitner, K. R., & Mehta, D. (2012). Mobile and smartphone use in urban and rural India. Continuum, 26(5), 685-697.

James, J., (2004). Reconstruing the digital divide from the perspective of a large, poor, developing country. Journal of Information Technology, 19, 172-177

Mallenius, S., Rossi, M., & Tuunainen, V. K. (2007). Factors affecting the adoption and use of mobile devices and services by elderly people–results from a pilot study. 6th Annual Global Mobility Roundtable, 31.

Published

2021-01-27

How to Cite

Chaturvedi, R. “Digitization: A Prerequisite for Women Empowerment”. International Journal of Advances in Management and Economics, Jan. 2021, pp. 19-25, https://managementjournal.info/index.php/IJAME/article/view/688.