Though women participate actively in all segments of the economy in Pakistan, it is very unfortunate that many of them continue to do their jobs and daily activities without having access to the internet.
A new study titled “Women Disconnected: Feminist Case Studies on the Gender Digital Divide Amidst Covid-19” suggests that six in ten women in Pakistan face restrictions from their families when using the web .
The key findings of the study suggest that 4 in 10 of the 115 respondents who took the survey use the web a day, while 2 in 10 respondents don’t use the web in the least .
Further, half the respondents who use the web daily, come from families with over 60,000 monthly income while 7 in 10 of these who don’t use the web come from families with below 30,0000 monthly income.
This shows that affordability contributes largely to women’s use of the web .Further, the gender divide is additionally hooked in to the region a lady lives in, for instance 8 in 10 women belonging to the newly merged districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa don’t use the web .
Additionally, some families are apprehensive about women using the web . Hence over 5 in 10 respondents (54%) either said that women’s use of the web is either considered bad or there are some concerns about their usage.
Sadly, only 21 percent of respondents consider the use of the internet by women to be healthy, while the remaining 25 percent said their families had no opinions on the issue.
