“This mobile phone in my hand has become my weapon. With this I fight wrongs in society and serve those in need” said Sumitra Devi, a SoochnaPreneur from the Bokaro district of Jharkhand. The smartphone in her hand was not only a digital tool with which she serves her community, but her ticket to independence. “I didn’t even know how to hold a mobile phone, using it was far-fetched. I would hold it upside down” she laughed. Her journey is reflective of India’s journey of digital development. In a country with a population of 700 million women, only 266 million have ever used the internet (UNFPA, 2023).
Digital spaces, being part of broader societal structures, often mirror and perpetuate the existing inequalities and disparities in any society or nation. Consequently, marginalised groups, particularly women, frequently find themselves in disadvantaged positions compared to men in accessing their rights and needs. Only 31% of women own a mobile phone in India as compared to 60% of men, signifying a clear gender gap (Sunilkumar, 2022). The Global Digital Inclusion Partnership (GDIP) Report 2024 outlines the major factors that contribute to this disparity including restricted digital access due to inadequate infrastructure, the high cost of devices and data services, reliance on male family members for device usage, and time constraints caused by unpaid care work and other income-generating work. These systemic barriers, when compounded by other socio-economic factors such as poverty, early marriage, and access to quality education, make women’s digital inclusion more challenging (GDIP, 2024).
In 2021, the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) in its report explains the economic cost of exclusion of women from the digital world has led to a staggering $1 trillion loss in global GDP, with a $126 billion loss recorded in 2020 alone. Scholars argued that closing the digital gender gap globally presents a $524 billion economic opportunity by 2025. A4AI also reports that gender consistently ranks lowest in digital policy priorities, with over 40% of countries lacking meaningful programs to expand women’s internet access (Alliance for Affordable Internet, 2021). This issue of gender digital divide is also directly linked to workforce participation, especially more so in South Asia. South Asia has amongst the lowest female education and labor participation rates globally (World Economic Forum, 2024a). Limited internet access leads to women being confined to low-paying, informal jobs, which exacerbates economic exclusion. Research shows that by 2030, 92 million digital jobs will emerge, yet women remain underrepresented (World Economic Forum, 2024b). This also affects women’s participation in entrepreneurship and business; while 20-25% of businesses in India are women-led, less than 2% secure capital (The Economic Times, 2022).
Despite declining device and data costs, affordability remains a barrier, especially for women from marginalized groups, including those with disabilities. Furthermore, they lack the skills to use digital payments, e-wallets, and online banking services, which can help them scale up their micro-businesses. Therefore, beyond social equity, closing the digital financial exclusion is an economic necessity. Given this reality, Digital Empowerment Foundation has been working towards bridging the gender digital divide, in India through several hyper-local initiatives, specifically through its flagship program, SoochnaPreneur. These social entrepreneurship models address the dual concerns of digital literacy gaps and digital financial literacy on the other to empower rural women to compete in male-dominated entrepreneurial spaces in an era where citizen services are increasingly digitised and e-commerce platforms have taken over the macro and micro markets. This pushes for designing solutions that are not only community-centric but also cater to the hyper-local needs.
A 2024 study by Chatterjee et al. (2024), based on rigorous research of over two years (January 2018 to December 2019) systematically analyzes the monthly participation of 278 soochnapreneurs. The research analyzes data from 142 local government areas (panchayats), and systematically compared regions with and without intervention to provide an understanding of the function and adaptation of soochnapreneurs over time. Using the SoochnaPreneur model as a case study, the authors empirically proved that in rural entrepreneurship models, selecting a woman empowers her to build her own identity, as well as within the patriarchal system, the women micro entrepreneurs become outliers whose family is known by her name instead of the other way around. Second, it enables them to break social norms and step out of their homes, leading not only to their empowerment but also serving as a role-model for other women and girls in their community. Thirdly, it outlines how the earnings of women, compared to the earnings of men, are more likely to benefit the family, contributing to improved socio-economic well-being and enhanced self-esteem. Lastly, hiring women helps avoid the classic problem of mission drift in such programs, as compared to men, women aspire for improved service-delivery for their community, which leads to more recognition. In contrast, men aspire for higher earnings and business expansion. This means that the woman’s aspirations are closely aligned with the mission of the program as well (Chatterjee et al., 2024).
Through women-led initiatives, DEF is working towards making India’s rural economy more robust with the hope of bringing about a more equitable country that does not face the rural-urban, village-city, unconnected-connected, and poor-rich divide. A key learning from 23 years of engagement with grassroots communities is that bridging the gender digital divide drives more democratic societies by ensuring equal access to opportunities for all.
Note: The SoochnaPreneur model is a social entrepreneurship initiative that trains individuals from rural areas in digital literacy and information access. It enables them to connect marginalized communities with government schemes and benefits, ensuring that essential citizen services reaches the last mile. The program creates local entrepreneurs who act as intermediaries between citizens and the government.
Maitri Singh and Abner Manzar work at Research and Advocacy Division of Digital Empowerment Foundation.
