Beyond the Device: Bridging Indias Digital Gender Divide

Digital technologies are widely promoted as tools for inclusion and empowerment, yet gendered inequalities continue to shape who can meaningfully benefit from digital transformation. This study examines the nature and persistence of India’s digital gender divide through a digital empowerment lens, focusing on mobile phone ownership, mobile internet awareness, adoption, and regular use. Using secondary data from the GSMA Mobile Gender Gap Reports spanning 2019–2024, the research quantifies gender disparities across multiple stages of mobile internet access and identifies key barriers hindering women’s digital empowerment. The findings reveal a “leaky pipeline” of inclusion, where women progressively drop off from mobile ownership to awareness, adoption, and daily use of mobile internet. While the gender gap in mobile phone ownership has narrowed over time, disparities remain pronounced in smartphone ownership, mobile internet adoption, and the ability to access mobile digital content regularly. Women are also significantly more likely to rely on shared or borrowed devices, limiting their privacy, autonomy, and overall process to digital empowerment. Among reported barriers, literacy emerges as the most persistent and gendered constraint which affects women towards accessing mobile digital ownership and content. Findings also reveal a sudden reduction in gender gaps across several indicators in the year 2020, which was coincidentally the COVID-19 lockdown period. However, these gains toward reducing the digital divide proved largely unsustainable in the subsequent years, indicating that crisis-induced access does not translate into long-term digital empowerment without structural support. The study demonstrates that access to devices and connectivity alone does not ensure digital empowerment. Instead, structural inequalities related to education, income, and gender norms continue to shape women’s digital capabilities and outcomes. The paper argues for a shift from access-centric digital inclusion strategies toward gender-responsive digital empowerment interventions that integrate functional literacy, affordable smartphone access, and sustained opportunities for meaningful digital use.