Digital infrastructure and gender gaps in labor force participation across developing economies

Abstract Persistent gender gaps in labor-force participation remain a major barrier to inclusive and sustainable development in low- and middle-income countries. While rising education and declining fertility have expanded women’s economic opportunities, progress has been uneven and often stalled. This paper examines whether the rapid expansion of digital infrastructure can help narrow these disparities. Using an unbalanced panel of 120 countries from 2000 to 2023, we estimate two-way fixed effects models with lagged measures of internet use and mobile subscriptions. The findings show that internet penetration is consistently associated with smaller gender gaps in labor-force participation, driven primarily by increases in female participation, whereas mobile subscriptions, though nearly universal, exhibit no comparable relationship. The association between internet access and gender equality appears broadly linear across adoption levels but is conditional on enabling environments: the gains are strongest in countries with higher female education, while electricity access shows a weaker role at the aggregate level. These results underscore both the promise and limits of digitalization as a pathway toward gender equality. Digital infrastructure alone cannot close gender gaps, but when combined with investments in education and complementary social policies, it can act as a powerful catalyst for women’s economic empowerment and more inclusive labor markets. The study contributes to ongoing debates on sustainable development by identifying digital connectivity as a policy-relevant lever for achieving the sustainable development goals on gender equality, decent work, and reduced inequalities.