Infrastructure and Gender Disparity in Information Communication Technology Literacy: A Cross-Country Comparative Study

Information Communication Technology (ICT) literacy is essential in the digital age, and an important channel to acquire essential ICT skills is science education. Gender gap in ICT literacy and the associated reasons remain under-explored, especially at macro level. Using country level data from the database of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this article explores the association between infrastructure and gender disparity in ICT literacy, both have direct relationship with science education. SDG Indicator 4.5.1 monitors the female/male ratio of acquiring the ability to use basic arithmetic formula in a spreadsheet (ARSP) at country level, which is selected into this article to measure gender disparity in ICT literacy. SDG Indicator 9.c.1 (the population coverage of 4G mobile network) is used to measure infrastructure development. SDG Indicator 4.4.1, monitors the percentage of population with ARSP skills, which also demonstrates the level of science education, is controlled as an independent variable. Linear regressions and correlations were conducted to explore the relationship between infrastructure and gender gap in ICT literacy in 30 countries, and Mann-Whitney U test was performed to conduce comparisons between high income and middle/low income countries. Infrastructure contributes to reduce gender gap in ICT literacy, because infrastructure can improve a country’s science education which can benefit both men and women’s ICT skills. However such influence may vary across countries. Reasons of the results were discussed with implications for policies.