In India, Women Account for 1/3 of all Internet Users: Study

By: WE Staff | Tuesday, 6 December 2022

According to a recent study, barely one-third of internet users in India are women. The study, which was carried out by NGO Oxfam India, also revealed that women in the nation are 15% less likely than men to own a mobile phone and 33% less likely to use mobile data.

According to the report, India Inequality Report 2022: Digital Divide, published on Sunday, "despite a considerable growth rate of 13% in a year, just 31% of the rural population utilises the internet whereas 67% of India's urban population uses the internet."

The study primarily involves the examination of data from the household survey conducted by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) between January 2018 and December 2021 in four waves.

This analysis's lack of intersectionality was one of its limitations, though. "We are examining technology access independently by caste, religion, money, and other factors. But we don't include things like access to a religion based on gender or poverty, for example," the report stated.

According to the study's definition of the digital divide, which was taken from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), it is "the gap between individuals, households, businesses, and geographic areas at different socio-economic levels with regard to both their chances to access information and communication technologies (ICTs) and their usage of the internet for a wide variety of activities."

Only approximately 9% of students who were registered in any course had access to a computer with internet, and 25% of enrolled students had access to the internet through any form of device, according to the NSS (2017–18).

Only 17% of people had used the internet in the previous month, despite an increase in internet customers and over 34% of people having access to it in 2017.

However, after the pandemic, everyone's lives had to include the digital world. "The internet has a strong presence, from many metropolitan firms having Google listings to online shopping, grocery shopping, and online banking. Due to this, India will have the most real-time transactions (48.6 billion) in 2021, according to the report.

Only one-fifth of the population can use a computer or the internet, according to the NSSO.