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Women's (In)Consequential Access: Evaluating the role of ICT-Enabled Economic Participation in Women's Economic Empowerment in Jordan
Abstract
The international development community in Jordan is focused on increasing women’s role in the labor force through information and communication technology (ICT) enabled home-based businesses and sharing economy applications because ICT-enabled economic participation allows women the flexibility to work from home on their schedules, overcoming restrictions to movement and limitations on time due to expectations about their role as homemaker-caregiver. Based on ten months of fieldwork in the Kingdom from 2018-2019 and three additional months of fieldwork in summer 2020, the paper examines the role of ICT-enabled economic participation in women’s actualized empowerment. The research broadly reveals that engaging with ICT-enabled work has numerous intangible benefits for women’s empowerment and changing perceptions of the value of women’s work in Jordanian society. However, the research shows that it is challenging to assess the direct, quantifiable economic benefits of women’s ICT-enabled work. It shows that ICTs provide a minimal amount of support for women’s home-based businesses and microenterprises, but that access to and use of ICTs in and of itself for these economic activities is not sufficient to overcome the numerous structural obstacles to women’s economic participation. The paper recommends that future development interventions seek to transform the enabling environment for women’s economic participation in Jordan and address the myriad of problems constraining women’s economic participation, including gender and social norms and inadequate transportation, logistics, and financial technology (fintech) infrastructure. To do this, it recommends a comprehensive approach to support women’s economic participation in Jordan, whereby ICTs can be a component of enabling women’s economic participation and market access, but where multiple interventions are necessary to change the environment that limits women in Jordan and limits the expected benefits from their economic participation.
Discipline
Sociology
Geographic Area
Jordan
Sub Area
Information Technology/Computing