Leveraging mobile phones to attain sustainable development

Abstract

<jats:p>For billions of people across the globe, mobile phones enable relatively cheap and effective communication, as well as access to information and vital services on health, education, society, and the economy. Drawing on context-specific evidence on the effects of the digital revolution, this study provides empirical support for the idea that mobile phones are a vehicle for sustainable development at the global scale. It does so by assembling a wealth of publicly available macro- and individual-level data, exploring a wide range of demographic and social development outcomes, and leveraging a combination of methodological approaches. Macro-level analyses covering 200+ countries reveal that mobile-phone access is associated with lower gender inequality, higher contraceptive uptake, and lower maternal and child mortality. Individual-level analyses of survey data from sub-Saharan Africa, linked with detailed geospatial information, further show that women who own a mobile phone are better informed about sexual and reproductive health services and empowered to make independent decisions. Payoffs are larger among the least-developed countries and among the most disadvantaged micro-level clusters. Overall, our findings suggest that boosting mobile-phone access and coverage and closing digital divides, particularly among women, can be powerful tools to attain empowerment-related sustainable development goals, in an ultimate effort to enhance population health and well-being and reduce poverty.</jats:p>

Monitoring global digital gender inequality using the online populations of Facebook and Google

“…In the context of developing countries, where women often face greater barriers to accessing information, communication, and wider social networks, the payoffs of internet access -which has become cheaper and more widely available due to the rapid diffusion of mobile phones -are likely to be even greater. Rotondi et al (2020) provide empirical support for this idea and find that mobile-phone diffusion over time within countries is associated with lower gender inequality, higher contraceptive uptake, and lower maternal and child mortality, and these associations are larger in least developed countries, even after controlling for other developmental processes such as economic growth and educational expansion. The same study further shows that mobile phone ownership among women in particular is linked to improvements in contraceptive knowledge and uptake, antenatal health behaviors, and greater equality in household decision-making in sub-Saharan Africa.…”

“…4 Even as internet access has proliferated, 'digital divides' or inequalities in access to and use of the internet persist (Scheerder, van Deursen, and van Dijk 2017;Robinson et al 2015). These inequalities are an increasingly important dimension of population inequality as digitalization continues to unfold and affect domains of social, demographic, and economic life (DiMaggio et al 2004;Robinson et al 2015;Hjort and Poulsen 2019;Billari, Giuntella, and Stella 2019;Rotondi et al 2020). Online inequalities often mirror sociodemographic, offline inequalities, and the digital divide by gender is one widely noted dimension of this inequality.…”

“…Digital gender inequality has significant implications for social and demographic outcomes. Research from both developed and developing countries has shown that internet and mobile phone use among women positively affects outcomes linked to their reproductive health and their children's health, as well as bolsters their decision-making power and economic prospects (Lagan, Sinclair, and Kernohan 2011;Lund et al 2014aLund et al , 2014bBeck et al 2014;Suri and Jack 2016;Dettling 2017;Rotondi et al 2020). The payoffs from technology adoption for these social and demographic outcomes are higher among the least developed countries (Rotondi et al 2020).…”

Mobile Technology and Gender Equality

“…All these efforts strengthen the continuum of care between reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and youth health and facilitate the development of high-quality, accountable health services, thus contributing to the promotion of women-centered policies and women's empowerment more broadly. A recent study combining a wide range of data sources and methodologies to infer causal relationships shows that women who own a mobile phone in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are better informed about sexual and reproductive health services and are more empowered to make independent decisions regarding contraception, with larger payoffs observed in more disadvantaged geographical areas (Rotondi et al 2020).…”

“…The increased affordability of mobile phones has also translated into enhanced financial independence and better labor market prospects, especially for women (Suri and Jack 2016), food security and dietary quality (Bhandari 2017;Sekabira and Qaim 2017), better educational outcomes (Aker et al 2012), and more decision-making power for women in domestic and public domains such as care work (Wekwete 2014) and politics (Abubakar and Dasuki 2018). A recent global-level study covering 200+ countries shows that mobile phone access is associated with lower gender inequality, higher contraceptive uptake, and lower maternal and child mortality (Rotondi et al 2020).…”