Empowering Women in the Digital Age

Digitalization offers a variety of opportunities for female empowerment and for a more equal female participation in labor markets, financial markets, and entrepreneurship. Currently, digitalization seems to favor female labor force that faces lower risk of being replaced by machines, as compared to male labor force. Women’s often superior social skills represent a comparative advantage in the digital age, and this is particularly so when social skills are complemented with higher education and advanced digital literacy. However, the same barriers and deficits that obstruct women’s current advancement in many G20 countries may deprive them from many beneficial opportunities in the digital age. Major efforts by G20 governments are required to invalidate these barriers. Rendering women better access to the new digital technologies seems a promising starting point for such efforts, and for thereby achieving the goal of gender equality.