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Information Technology for Development

Author ORCID Identifier

Mukul Kumar: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2963-4288

Debashis Saha: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0523-9646

Abstract

Despite continuous efforts through various policy interventions, gender inequality remains a significant concern for governments globally. As they increasingly adopt information and communication technologies, e-government development may offer a pathway to reduce gender disparities. Using panel data for 115 countries from 2003 to 2022, this study applies two-way fixed effects to examine the impact of e-government development and its three dimensions, namely, telecommunication infrastructure, online services, and human capital, on gender inequality. Results indicate that stronger e-government development is associated with lower gender inequality at the national level. While telecommunication infrastructure and human capital consistently exhibit negative association with gender inequality, the effect of online services becomes statistically significant only after a 1-year lag, suggesting a delayed impact. Deeper analyses on country cohorts, based on longitudinal clustering, reveal interesting context-dependent variations in the above relationships, thereby underscoring the need for tailored, dimension-specific e-government policies to effectively promote gender equality.

DOI

10.17705/1ITD.032307

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