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Digital Solutions for Rural Women Growing Gender Divide
It
is estimated that increasing women’s labour force participation by 10
percentage points could add $700 billion to India’s GDP by 2025 (or a
1.4% increase) and lead to significant social and environmental
well-being. Unfortunately, current development trajectories do not
provide evidence of this happening and there is an urgent need for
action, driven by new ideas and innovative solutions to this massive
challenge.
As per Census 20111, women constitute 48.5% of India’s population of more than 1.21 billion. However the World Gender Gap Report 20172 says that labour force participation of women in 2017 was only 28.5% compared to 82% of men. A report by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE)3, tells that 8.8 million women lost jobs in 2018, of which 6.5 million were in rural India. Moreover, the ones working are predominantly stuck with traditional occupations like beauty parlours, tailoring centres and incense stick making - restricted by the lack of exposure to new and innovative ideas and support services. Technology Challenge There is an urgent need to enhance access to work opportunities within rural communities and build capacities of young women to undertake entrepreneurial ventures without having to necessarily re-locate themselves. The Work 4 Progress (W4P) programme of “la Caixa” Banking Foundation is focused on accelerating the creation of meaningful and dignified employment. W4P has launched a technology challenge to address the need of creating new work opportunities in the rapidly changing economy of Uttar Pradesh. The challenge aims to find Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based solutions which can be used to create virtual co-working spaces for young women (18-25) in Eastern Uttar Pradesh and thereby enhance access to entrepreneurial work opportunities in a rapidly transforming economy. The technology challenge looks at issues such as lack of mobility, poor connectivity and aversion to risk among the young women and their families. It will bring in new narratives and build diverse career trajectories for young women to explore. Some of the probable outcomes can be:
The solution will incorporate capacity building of women on the use of digital platforms and build solidarity among them. This will not only build a bridge to entrepreneurship and work opportunities, but also instill a sense of entrepreneurship and thereby secure their future income. In the context to rural U.P, women could for example gain entry into the workforce through jobs, such as marketing affiliates, beta tester of apps, offline content writing etc. The challenge can use offline prototypes toolkits like Information Kiosks which are digital information centres installed in villages, Safe Spaces which are local platforms for women to interact and collectively build solution to their issues and Coalitions which are platforms for different stakeholders to come together. Technology has a great role to play in increasing incidences of women entrepreneurship among communities. Transforming towards a digital economy needs inclusive digital solutions and the challenge envisions to create spaces that enable women to ask questions, exchange ideas, source information, enhance skills and connect to work opportunities in the “world beyond their village”. ■
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