Digital technologies are a double-edged sword for women. Men’s greater access to these technologies puts women at risk of being left even further behind economically and socially.
However, if women can tap the full power of digital technologies, vital new opportunities will open up for them.
According to estimates by the GSM Association, women’s access to the Internet and mobile phones is about 85 percent of the level for men, on average, while 1.7 billion women in low and middle-income countries are unconnected. This severely limits the prospects of women and girls.
Digital technologies enhance women’s access to finance, with mobile banking enabling them to avoid long journeys to a branch or ATM. Likewise, technology-enabled healthcare delivered via phone or tablet improves health outcomes, as it reaches women even in the remotest areas, sparing them a long and often risky trek to see a doctor.
The timesaving potential of digital technologies is so great that they might make the difference in enabling women to seek paid employment. Today, women undertake three-quarters of all unpaid care work, producing output of about US$10 trillion, or 13 percent of global GDP — none of which is translated into income, let alone economic power.
By their nature, e-commerce and technology-based businesses offer women more flexibility and autonomy, helping them to manage home responsibilities alongside paid work. In Indonesia, women-owned businesses generate 35 percent of e-commerce revenue, compared with only 15 percent of the revenue of offline businesses.
Likewise, in China, 55 percent of new Internet businesses are founded by women, and Alibaba’s Taobao e-commerce platform has an equal number of male and female store owners. In fact, China is home to 114 of the world’s 147 self-made female billionaires, compared with just 14 in the second-placed country, the US.
Women’s economic empowerment is good not just for the women who benefit. The McKinsey Global Institute has estimated that advancing gender equality could add US$12 trillion per year to the world economy by 2025. In the Asia-Pacific region alone, getting more women into full-time employment in higher-paid, higher-productivity sectors could add US$4.5 trillion per year to GDP, 12 percent above the current trajectory.
At the company level, a growing body of evidence shows that more gender equality is good for bottom lines. Greater diversity of leadership styles improves the quality of decisionmaking. If given the opportunity, women could be leading innovators in the age of automation and artificial intelligence, and could help to ensure that algorithms are free of gender bias.
However, major barriers prevent women from seizing these opportunities. For example, in India, where only 29 percent of all Internet users are female, girls in rural areas often face gender-based restrictions on their use of information and communications technologies. One village in Uttar Pradesh implemented a fine for any girl using a mobile phone outside the home.
Beyond the social attitudes that undermine women’s access to digital technologies, women and girls often disproportionately lack the requisite skills to seize the opportunities of the digital age. In Singapore, for example, women lag behind men in education in science, math, engineering and technology.
At Nanyang Technological University, females comprised only 27 percent of the undergraduate computer-science program in 2015-2016, despite accounting for half of all undergraduates at the university.
What is at stake is not just women’s ability to seize the opportunities offered by the digital revolution, but also their capacity to withstand the coming wave of automation. According to research by the institute, in Singapore alone, 800,000 fulltime-equivalent jobs could be displaced by 2030 due to automation. The jobs that are most vulnerable to automation are the low-paid, lower-skill jobs that women are more likely to hold.
At the same time, though automation risks disrupting many jobs, or tasks within jobs, for both men and women, it also takes some of the drudgery out of current work, tailoring it to human abilities. The result could be higher wages that contribute to the creation of more new jobs — 300 million to 365 million worldwide — as spending increases, with emerging economies gaining the most.
Furthermore, among the new jobs that will be created will be many in fields like education and healthcare, where women have traditionally thrived. According to the institute’s research, more than 100 million jobs could be created over the next 10 to 15 years as healthcare and education needs grow.
It is not yet clear exactly how automation will affect women’s employment, but there is no doubt that protecting — and even enhancing — women’s job and income prospects will require upgrading their skills, so that they can take advantage of the new and changing opportunities created by the ongoing digital revolution.
The success of women in e-commerce attests to the power of digital technologies to level the economic playing field, to the benefit of individual women, their communities and societies, and the world economy. More women in work — particularly in the technology industries that are shaping our collective future — would be good news for all.
Sandrine Devillard is a senior partner at McKinsey & Co. Anu Madgavkar is a McKinsey Global Institute partner.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
Recently, China launched another diplomatic offensive against Taiwan, improperly linking its “one China principle” with UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to constrain Taiwan’s diplomatic space. After Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan. 13, China persuaded Nauru to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Nauru cited Resolution 2758 in its declaration of the diplomatic break. Subsequently, during the WHO Executive Board meeting that month, Beijing rallied countries including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Laos, Russia, Syria and Pakistan to reiterate the “one China principle” in their statements, and assert that “Resolution 2758 has settled the status of Taiwan” to hinder Taiwan’s
The past few months have seen tremendous strides in India’s journey to develop a vibrant semiconductor and electronics ecosystem. The nation’s established prowess in information technology (IT) has earned it much-needed revenue and prestige across the globe. Now, through the convergence of engineering talent, supportive government policies, an expanding market and technologically adaptive entrepreneurship, India is striving to become part of global electronics and semiconductor supply chains. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vision of “Make in India” and “Design in India” has been the guiding force behind the government’s incentive schemes that span skilling, design, fabrication, assembly, testing and packaging, and
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s (李顯龍) decision to step down after 19 years and hand power to his deputy, Lawrence Wong (黃循財), on May 15 was expected — though, perhaps, not so soon. Most political analysts had been eyeing an end-of-year handover, to ensure more time for Wong to study and shadow the role, ahead of general elections that must be called by November next year. Wong — who is currently both deputy prime minister and minister of finance — would need a combination of fresh ideas, wisdom and experience as he writes the nation’s next chapter. The world that
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry