{"id":217456,"date":"2022-12-07T20:15:09","date_gmt":"2022-12-07T14:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=217456"},"modified":"2022-12-07T20:15:09","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T14:45:09","slug":"only-31-women-own-mobile-phones-says-oxfam-report-on-india-digital-divide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/only-31-women-own-mobile-phones-says-oxfam-report-on-india-digital-divide\/","title":{"rendered":"Only 31% women own mobile phones, says Oxfam report on India digital divide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source: <\/b>The post is based on the article <\/span>\u201cOnly 31% women own mobile phones, says Oxfam report on India digital divide\u201d <\/b>published in<\/span> Hindustan Times <\/b>on 7th December 2022<\/b><\/p>\n

What is the News?<\/b><\/h5>\n

Oxfam has released a report titled ‘India Inequality Report 2022: Digital Divide’. The <\/span>report highlights the extent of the digital divide in India and its impact on essential services such as education, health and financial inclusion.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is Digital Divide?<\/b><\/h5>\n

Digital divide refers to the gap between individuals, households, businesses and geographic areas at different socio-economic levels with regard to both their opportunities to access information and communication technologies(ICTs) and to their use of the internet for a wide variety of activities.<\/span><\/p>\n

What are the key findings of the report?<\/b><\/h5>\n

61% of men-owned mobile phones in 2021 compared to just 31% of women.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Only 31% of the rural population uses the Internet compared to 67% of their urban counterparts.<\/span><\/p>\n

The reach of digital technologies remains largely limited to male, urban, upper-caste, and upper-class individuals. While 8% of the general caste have access to a computer or a laptop, less than 1% of the Scheduled Tribes (ST) and 2% of the Scheduled Castes(SC) afford it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The use of computer devices has decreased in rural areas. While 3% of the rural population used to own a computer before the pandemic, the number slipped to just 1% post-Covid.<\/span><\/p>\n

The employment status of Indians also proved to be linked to access to digital services as 95% of the permanent salaried workers have phones, as compared to only 50% of the unemployed.<\/span><\/p>\n

The digital push driven by the pandemic resulted in India experiencing the largest number of real-time digital transactions in 2021 at 48.6 billion. However, the likelihood of a digital payment by the richest 60% is four times more than the poorest 40% in India.<\/span><\/p>\n

Among states, Maharashtra has the highest internet penetration, followed by Goa and Kerala, while Bihar has the lowest, followed by Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.<\/span><\/p>\n

What are the recommendations given by the report to bridge the digital divide?<\/b><\/h5>\n

a) Improve internet availability<\/strong> in rural and hard-to-reach areas through community networks and public Wi-Fi\/ internet access points, b)<\/strong> <\/span>Improve affordability<\/strong> by investing in digital infrastructure, bringing a strong regulatory framework and lowering taxes on computers and phones, c)<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Conduct digital literacy camps<\/strong>, especially in rural India, and digitize panchayats and schools, and\u00a0 d)<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Grievance redressal mechanism<\/strong> to handle EdTech and Healthtech related complaints.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: The post is based on the article \u201cOnly 31% women own mobile phones, says Oxfam report on India digital divide\u201d published in Hindustan Times on 7th December 2022 What is the News? Oxfam has released a report titled ‘India Inequality Report 2022: Digital Divide’. The report highlights the extent of the digital divide in… Continue reading Only 31% women own mobile phones, says Oxfam report on India digital divide<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1566,1305,7965,9],"tags":[10595],"class_list":["post-217456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-factly-articles","category-index-reports-bodies","category-miscellaneous-daily-factly-articles","category-public","tag-hindustan-times","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217456\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}