*By Carolina Trogliero, Economist and specialist in Data Sciences.
The digital divide, in a comprehensive sense, is the existing inequality between people, communities and countries regarding the access and use of digital technologies. It involves not only access to these technologies but also the use that is given to them, so that they can have a positive impact on their lives.
Currently, there is a wide range of factors that influence the digital divide, including gender, age, educational level, socioeconomic level, disability, etc.; These variables highlight the complexity and transversality of the problem, turning the digital divide into one of the main causes of acceleration and expansion of pre-existing social inequalities.
DIGITAL GENDER GAP
According to the report “Women’s Rights Online: Closing the digital gender gap for a more equal world” conducted by the World Wide Web Foundation (2020), women are less likely than men to access and use the Internet. This can affect the possibilities that they have in education, in participation in the digital economy, and in political decision-making, among others.
Around the world, women face barriers that prevent them from fully benefiting from the internet, ranging from a lack of digital skills, educational gaps, affordability barriers made worse by unequal income, to online harassment and digital rights violations. Women and girls not only have less access and use of the internet, but when using it they are more likely than men to face harassment, abuse and threats of violence online.
The reasons for this digital gender gap are diverse, and are linked to inequalities in access to education and income, cultural expectations and traditional gender roles, and policies that fail to address these inequities. These, of course, vary according to countries and contexts.
THE DIGITAL GENDER GAP IN ARGENTINA
The sectors of the knowledge economy and especially the technology industry are growing rapidly and creating most of the jobs and professional opportunities of the present and the future. However, in Argentina these possibilities are not open to all people with equal probability. According to the IT Salary Survey conducted in January 2022 by OpenQube, 76.95% of people working in the IT sector are cis males.
This shortage of women working in technology has an impact on digital platforms and online services, as they are often not designed with the needs of women in mind.
The gap is also present in educational choices, according to the report “Connected with the future” Conducted by Chicas en Tecnología and JP Morgan, only 25% of adolescents under 24 years of age expressed the intention to study or be studying technology careers. This indicates that the gap between the training choices of adolescents and the skills most required by the world of work still persists.
In turn, in our country, while six out of ten university students are women, this participation is reduced to 25% among those who study engineering and applied sciences, and to 15% in programming careers, according to the Implementation Center of Public Policies for Equity and Growth (Cippec), which also warns about how women play a fundamental role in the democratization, not only of technology, but also in the possibilities it generates.
It is important to continue working to ensure that all people have equitable access to digital technologies and can reap their benefits. It is essential to address all the ways in which women find it difficult to benefit from technology and to achieve greater personal and professional well-being, as well as to take an active role in the creation of the digital world.
About Less gap, more community
As of Municipal Ordinance No. 13,904 sanctioned in October 2020, the Municipality of Córdoba assumed the commitment to enable access and use of New Technologies to the people of Cordoba, mainly those from sectors with greater social, educational vulnerability , cultural and economic. This program currently depends on the Ministry of Planning, Modernization and International Relations and is implemented through the CorLab. In this period, 8 programs have already been implemented to reduce the digital gap in the city virtually (live and asynchronous) and in person in the different EDUCATIONAL PARKS of our city and virtual through the INSTITUTE FOR TRAINING AND SELECTION OF PUBLIC TRAINERS ( INFOSSEP).
Within the framework of the program Less Gap, More Community also take place Strategic Alliances with different institutions to provide quality training and achieve greater impact. Some of the institutions and organizations that accompany us: ARGENTINE KONECTA, AIPHAG, DALAT FOUNDATION, CÓRDOBA REGIONAL NATIONAL TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY,y ACADEMIA 3E
Bibliographic references
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