Bridging digital gender gaps: the impact of digitalization and time use on women’s labour force participation in Asia and the Pacific

In this paper, the author examines the relationship between women’s labour force participation rates and digitalization in Asia-Pacific countries, utilizing World Bank data from 1991 to 2023. The analysis reveals that digitalization, measured by Internet users as a percentage of the population and mobile subscriptions per 100 people, has a significant positive impact on labour force participation. Women’s time use plays a critical role in influencing labour force participation rates, as women in the Asia-Pacific region spend a disproportionate amount of time on unpaid domestic work and care services, which limits their availability for formal employment and negatively affects their participation in the labour force. This underscores the need for improved time-use surveys.