In the words of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ‘There has never been a better time in history to be a born a female’ – we at GSMA Connected Women couldn’t agree more. 2015 marks the target date of the Millennium Development Goals, and the anniversary of the Beijing conference for gender equality, and it is clear that gender equality and empowerment is and will increasingly be a hot topic on the international development agenda. Opened by Anne Bouverot, GSMA Director General, this year’s Connected Women Summit at Mobile World Congress 2015 particularly focused on catalysing attention on the gender-related issues affecting the mobile industry: ensuring the greater inclusion of women both as consumers of mobile services, as well as employees and leaders in the mobile and tech industry.
Renee James, President of Intel, highlighted that while progress has been made in the past decades in ensuring women’s greater inclusion both as consumer and employees and leaders in the mobile industry, much is left to be done, and that the benefits for both the international community and the mobile industry could be enormous. Intel recognises the potential that lies into ensuring that women are connected to technology and work in ICT, and this has well translated into the ‘She will Connect’ and ‘Accelerating diversity in technology’ initiatives.
A gender gap in ownership and usage affects women as consumers of mobile services
Increasing women’s access to mobile means social empowerment, but also makes business sense. However, while a lot has been done in the past 5 years, when it comes to women as consumers of mobile services in developing markets, a gender gap in access to and usage of mobile persists. Our recent report ‘Bridging the gender gap: Mobile access and usage in low- and middle –income countries’ estimates that women are 14% less likely than men to own a mobile phone, translating into 200 million fewer women than men owning a phone. The gender gap exists also at a usage level, as women were found to be less likely than men to use mobile to its full benefits. This means that if nothing is done to bridge this gap in the next 5 years, the mobile industry could be missing out on up to $170 billion revenues.
Women are underrepresented as employees and leaders in the mobile industry
Also, women tend to be underrepresented in the industry workforce both as employees and as leaders – the report ‘Accelerating the digital economy: gender diversity in the telecommunications sector’ highlights that a gender balanced workforce is key to growth and innovation, as well as performance. In fact, companies that are gender-diverse and utilise female talent effectively are 45% more likely to report improved market share, and that women must not only be recruited, but also engaged and promoted to leadership levels. Gender diversity in the workplace means business and better performance.
It’s time to take action
Ross Cormack, CEO of Ooredoo Myanmar and David Thodey, CEO of Telstra, closed the Connected Women Summit by making a clear call to action to ensure the greater inclusion of women in the continuum to consumer, employee, and leader.
Ooredoo Myanmar is committed not only to ensure gender diversity in the workforce (Ooredoo Myanmar reports that 57% of all their employees are women), but also to empower the women of Myanmar, which are seen as a commercial market segment. This commitment has translated into the launch of a series of initiatives such as Geek Girls Myanmar, helping to bring together female technology professionals, students and enthusiasts in the first designed-for-women initiative in the technology industry in Myanmar, and the launch of the maternal app Maymay, and has enabled Ooredoo Myanmar to win the ‘Connected Women: Leadership in Industry’ award.
Telstra is one of the few companies in the mobile industry that publish their numbers about gender diversity in the workforce, and is striving not only to improve these numbers, but also to ensure it retains its female talents, by providing competitive maternity leave and flexible working hours, thanks to initiatives such as All Roles Flex. Telstra’s operations team is currently made up of 13.7 percent females, and Telstra are aiming to increase this to 15 percent by the end of 2015. Diversity and gender balance have had a direct impact on Telstra’s business strategy, as they have recognised that a diverse team brings together varied perspectives, produces a more holistic analysis of the issues, and spurs greater effort, leading to better decision making.
GSMA Connected Women encourages you to share your initiatives aimed at ensuring the greater inclusion of women in your market, both as consumers of mobile services and as employees and leaders in the mobile industry, by emailing connectedwomen@gsma.com