On basic terms, discussion on the mobile gender gap simply refers to how often men are subject to using the internet than women at least once in three months. The GSMA intelligence conducts an annual survey to help point out whether the mobile gender gap is widening, narrowing or being constant.
In 2019, the GSMA intelligence run a survey where 16,000 individuals across 15 low- and middle- income countries were sampled and the following was uncovered:
- Currently, 54% of women use the internet
- 165 million fewer women than men owning a mobile phone since 8% fewer women are less likely to own a mobile phone,
- 300 million more men than women use mobile internet. The gender gap is largest in South Asia at 51%, with Sub-Saharan Africa coming second at 37%.
- Women are 20% less likely to use the internet on a mobile
Despite the narrowing of the gender gap over the years that has brought an additional 236 million women online, on average, women still use a smaller range of services in the countries surveyed and this is attributed by:
- Lack of literacy and digital skills
- Handset affordability, resulting in most of them having only basic phones, with no internet access
- Safety concerns, particularly in Latin America
In low- and middle-income countries, 2.9 billion people now access the internet on their mobile phones, according to the survey. In short, a Smartphone is currently owned by 1.2 billion women in both low and middle-income countries showing an 11% increase to 55%.