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ECONOMYNEXT – The participation if ladies in Sri Lanka’s ICT business is low with females holding solely 34 p.c of the roles within the sector, policymakers and organizations ought to take into account establishing feminine pleasant insurance policies to encourage extra partition of ladies, the Institute of Coverage Research, a Colombo-based assume tank has mentioned.
The total assertion is reproduced under;
DigitALL: Are Sri Lankan Ladies Deserted in Digital Transformation?
By Lakshila Wanigasinghe
Written for Worldwide Ladies’s Day on 08 March 2023.
Expertise performs an necessary function in trendy society. It connects, innovates, and transforms economies and societies at giant. But, ladies and women proceed to have restricted entry to expertise. This gender bias can be current in Sri Lanka, the place ladies comprise of over 50% of the inhabitants.
This yr, the United Nations marks Worldwide Ladies’s Day with the theme “DigitALL: Innovation and expertise for gender equality”, specializing in the digital gender hole’s impression on widening socio-economic inequalities. This weblog explores the elements hindering Sri Lankan ladies’s entry to expertise and discusses some methods to beat them.
Digital Gender Divide
The time period digital gender divide refers back to the hole in digital adoption and use throughout genders. Findings recommend that greater than half of all ladies worldwide are offline. The gender hole in digital entry is wider throughout creating international locations, the place the web penetration fee is 53% and 41% for grownup women and men respectively.
COVID-19 emphasised the significance of expertise as many authorities providers, schooling, enterprise, and monetary providers had been carried out on-line throughout this time. It additionally confirmed that many teams not solely lack entry to the digital economic system but additionally assets, expertise, and data. In Sri Lanka, just one out of 5 households owned a desktop or laptop computer pc in 2021. Lower than half of the inhabitants used the web, and e-mail customers had been even fewer. Whereas Sri Lanka reported a digital literacy fee of 57.2% in 2021, the pc literacy fee was solely 34.3%, with females falling behind in each features (Determine 1).
Determine 1 – Digital and Pc Literacy Charges, 2021
Though Sri Lanka’s larger fee of digital literacy comes throughout as a constructive indicator, it is very important notice that the measure for digital literacy is a person’s skill to ‘use a pc, laptop computer, pill or smartphone on his/her personal.’ Nonetheless, this measure could not totally replicate true digital literacy as it could possibly additionally embody those that solely use smartphones for voice calls. Even towards this measure, it’s evident that girls are underrepresented.
The digital gender divide adversely impacts ladies’s entry to schooling, well being, and monetary inclusion. Ladies and women face varied obstacles, together with the restricted availability, data, and socio-cultural boundaries, which forestall them from totally utilising digital assets. One other deterrent is the excessive prices related to digital gadgets and web providers, particularly for rural households. Sri Lanka’s rural and property sectors lag in digital and pc literacy compared to the city sector. That is prone to have a extra important impression on women and girls in these areas. Additional, digital security considerations regarding cybercrimes, on-line harassment, higher potential for hate speech, and the general lack of accountability for such actions discourage some ladies from utilizing expertise fully.
Closing the Hole
Enhancing Employability Prospects – In at this time’s rising digital period, the absence of digital literacy and utilization will cut back ladies’s employability prospects additional widening gender inequalities. Therefore addressing it’s essential to narrowing financial and social inequalities. Because the job market shifts in direction of extremely expert positions, ladies should adapt and put together to stay aggressive. It may be anticipated that these jobs will improve extra formal employment alternatives and safe types of earnings technology. At the moment, solely 34% of ICT jobs in Sri Lanka are held by females. Rising feminine illustration the sector may also contribute in direction of having extra function fashions for ladies all for pursuing related fields sooner or later. Thus, shattering the glass ceiling requires quick motion to shut the digital gender divide in the long term.
Gender Equality at Work – To handle the prevailing gender bias, policymakers and organisations should work collectively to determine ‘female-friendly’ insurance policies and programmes. Making ladies really feel welcome and empowered is an efficient start line. Whereas addressing gender stereotypes is necessary, additionally they have to be coupled with different services comparable to protected transport and versatile work schedules to encourage extra ladies to use for positions in male dominated fields. This might not solely improve the variety of ladies within the area but additionally assist ladies obtain household help to pursue careers in expertise.
Empowering Rural Ladies – It’s mandatory to supply equal alternatives for ladies in tech and permit them to develop in order that their success can encourage different ladies to comply with go well with. This additionally contains bridging the urban-rural divide in expertise entry. Therefore introducing rural ladies to digital expertise, formal banking and digital monetary options is necessary. This might additionally embody specialised coaching and mortgage schemes for females all for getting into the expertise area. Bettering ladies’s entry opens up alternatives for safe financing and a path out of poverty -by partaking in varied companies, particularly at a time when e-commerce is fashionable. These constructive financial outcomes generally is a sport changer for rural female-headed households and Sri Lanka as an entire. Furthermore, they will present small companies entry to worldwide markets if accomplished appropriately.
Ability Enhancements – Survey findings hyperlink larger instructional attainment and data in English to higher pc literacy in Sri Lanka. Thus, selling larger schooling and English literacy amongst women from a younger age will show mutually helpful in bettering pc literacy charges. Whereas ICT is included within the present college curriculum, what’s taught on the obligatory degree is insufficient. Due to this fact, it’s important that policymakers replace the subject material to satisfy the rising digital demand. Consistent with this, disparities in useful resource allocations on the college degree should even be addressed (comparable to insufficient availability of computer systems in smaller faculties, absence of pc labs and so forth.). Encouraging women to pursue Science, Expertise, Engineering and Arithmetic (STEM) is crucial as a result of ‘there gained’t be any ladies in tech with out women in STEM.’
Given Sri Lanka’s present financial standing, it’s also necessary to contemplate useful resource allocations. That is particularly regarding allocating funds in direction of distributing computer systems to less-developed faculties, organising coaching packages for rural ladies and so forth. Whereas these are important measures in bridging the digital gender hole, implementing any initiatives in phases is greatest. This may present a greater mechanism to watch the impression of actions on closing the hole and assist modify course as mandatory, with out pointless waste of scarce assets.
Hyperlink to authentic weblog: https://www.ips.lk/talkingeconomics/2023/03/08/digitall-are-sri-lankan-women-abandoned-in-digital-transformation/
Lakshila Wanigasinghe is a Analysis Officer on the IPS with analysis pursuits in poverty, social welfare, improvement, schooling, and well being. She holds an MSc in Economics with a focus in Growth Economics and a BA in Economics with concentrations in Worldwide, Monetary and Legislation and Economics from Southern Illinois College Carbondale (SIUC), US. (lakshila@ips.lk)
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