Information and communication technology and female employment in India

Abstract

We revisit the issue of declining female labour force participation in India by investigating the role of information and communication technology (ICT) adoption. Given that ICT has been rapidly penetrating in India in the past few decades, we explore the impact of ICT ownership and use on female labour market behaviour. We use a nationally representative survey, the India Human Development Survey and estimate instrumental variable regression models and find that ICT adoption increases the likelihood of female employment. Our results show that the positive impact of ICT adoption is limited to individuals who are salaried or are self-employed. Further, we find that ICT adoption increases (decreases) the likelihood of entry into (exit from) the labour market. We contrast our analysis by comparing it with male employment and find evidence of differential impact of ICT adoption. Finally, we find that the effect is limited to women with relatively higher levels of education and those belonging to relatively higher income households. We investigate the potential channels that could drive our results and find that women who adopt ICT have more flexible work options where they spend lesser time to travel to work, have a higher autonomy in work related decisions and a higher willingness to enter the workforce. Thus, ICT adoption by reducing information asymmetries in the labour market could increase female labour market participation.