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Facing the Gender Gap in Access and Use of Information Sources

Communication often needs to be tailored by gender to account for differing socioeconomic conditions of men and women, cultural norms about household roles and the use of leisure time, or gender differences in preferences and tastes. Education offers one easily measured indicator of the types of challenges facing women that might affect their access to and use of information: in the AudienceScapes survey, women were more likely than men to have received no formal schooling (14 percent of women in the survey versus 8 percent of men), while they were half as likely as men to achieve a university degree.

The survey also provides evidence of these barriers in the lower household access to ICTs reported by women. Since the survey participants’ selection was randomized down to the individual level, one would not expect to see differences between men and women in terms of their household access. One possible explanation is that women did not report having an item at home if they themselves do not have access to it (Chart 1).

Chart 1 
  

In addition, women's self-reported use of media, ICT, and institutional sources to access news and information registered at significantly lower levels than men's self-reported use across the board (Chart 2).

Chart 2
                   

Planning a Target Strategy for Women in Kenya

Interestingly, women said they use word-of-mouth sources (friends and family or other people in their communities) as much as men do. In fact, friends and family are women’s most-cited sources for news and information in the last week, narrowly beating radio. Women were significantly less likely to have accessed news and information from newspapers, and only about half as likely as men to have accessed news and information from the internet in the last week. Thus, personal sources of information probably need to play a relatively larger role in any communication or outreach strategy aimed at women rather than at men.

That said, it is not clear whether such personal sources will necessarily be women speaking to women. The survey data indicate that women are less active than men as sources of either news and information, or advice and opinions (Charts 3 and 4).

Chart 3
        

Chart 4
        

Not only do people come to women less often to talk about general news and information, but women also report that fewer people rely on them for opinions or advice on the news: 9 percent said that no one does (compared to 7 percent of men), and another 71 percent said that fewer than five people look to their opinions (compared to 64 percent of men). The upshot here is that women who say they rely heavily on word-of-mouth for information are not only turning to other women for this information, but also to men in their communities. Therefore, a word-of-mouth communication strategy targeting women must not only involve women, but also has to include men.