Mobile Gender Gap remains high with only 37% female subscriptions

By Kalbe Ali

ISLAMABAD: The Digital Gender Gap in Pakistan remains high with only 37 percent mobile subscriptions and penetration in the female population, and the social media usage by the females too was significantly low in the country.

The annual report of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) 2021 has highlighted that the Pakistani women living both in rural and urban areas were making 5 percent more voice/video calls on Skype compared to men.

The PTA has said that due to low literacy rates women preferred to use internet platforms offering voice facilities and images rather than written content.
At the same time, the most visited local websites in the country were Daraz, OLX, Urdu Point, and Dawn, but out of around 46 mn social media users, the gender gap remains wide with only 22 percent of them being females while 78 percent the males dominated the category of social media users.

The PTA has added that although being aware of the potential benefits of the internet, females in Pakistan cannot use it primarily due to low levels of female literacy, inadequate ICT skills, and low affordability, apart from being financially dependent members of the family.

“Moreover, due to the local socio-cultural norms, the families of females do not approve of Internet usage due to a variety of reasons including safety and security,” the telecom sector regulator has said.

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The PTA has referred to the GSMA Intelligence Consumer Survey 2017-19, which was carried out in 12 countries, Pakistan has one of the strongest rates of growth in mobile Internet awareness, especially among women.

GSMA report highlights mobile gender gap

The GSMA report highlighted that the gender gap in Internet awareness declined from 16 percent to 11 percent between 2017- 2019.
The PTA has said that for the last couple of years, the percentage of female mobile subscriptions was around 21 percent only of the total subscriptions.

However, the regulator has said that a large number of women use mobile connections obtained in the name of male family members.
Out of 182 million in the financial year 2020-21) mobile connections across Pakistan, only 38 million are held by females against their CNICs, the remaining 144 million connections are held by the male population.

Mobile penetration in the female population stands at 37 percent, compared to 130 percent in the male population, which means that a large number of men obtained more than one connection in their name.

Similarly, female mobile ownership in Pakistan was 50 percent, compared to male ownership of 81 percent.
In terms of the rural-urban divide, the gap between male-female mobile ownership in the rural areas is much higher, compared to urban areas.
Female mobile ownership in Sindh, Punjab, and KPK was almost the same that was s between 23 percent to 29 percent but it was relatively lower in Balochistan at 15 percent.

The PTA has highlighted that not only Pakistan but South Asia holds the world’s widest gender gap, with only 18 percent of women using the Internet.
However, in Pakistan, the gender gap over Internet usage in Pakistan was steadily narrowing. Ends