Do information and communication technologies empower female workers? Evidence from Vietnam

We examine the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) adoption on female employment outcomes in Vietnam, using data at both the firm and household levels. Our identification strategy leverages geographic variation in the engineering costs of connecting to Vietnam’s ICT backbone, along with the temporal shock of the 2007 major network capacity expansion. We find that increased ICT adoption raises firms’ female labor share and reduces gender gaps in monthly work days, formal employment, and time spent on housework. We also document a plausible mechanism: ICT adoption shifts labor demand away from routine and manual tasks toward social, customer-facing, and service-oriented tasks—areas in which women are more likely to hold a comparative advantage.