Lifeline: Risks & Opportunities for Women from the Covid-19 Digital Revolution

During the Covid-19 pandemic, digital [1] use among women has increased significantly. Around the world, digital has become a life saver for many women. But this digital revolution hasn’t been without cost. The boundary between work and home life, for example, has become increasingly blurred. And some women worry they may lose their jobs to digitalization. Even so, women see clear opportunities in digital – to learn new skills, socialize and make their lives simpler. This is the latest in our series of reports into the Covid-19 pandemic, and its impact on women. Our previous two reports examined the economic and health effects of the crisis. This time, we’re looking at women’s increased use of digital technology, and at how digital is now reaching into almost all aspects of women’s day-to-day lives. Covid-19 has been the first truly global pandemic of the digital era.

To compile this report, we again worked with research firm Ipsos to survey 8,000 women from different social and economic backgrounds in eight countries: France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Nigeria, Spain, Thailand and the UK. All interviews were carried out in February 2021 – just as new vaccine campaigns were getting underway in many parts of the world [2].

[1] Please note that this study uses “digital” to mean the use of digital devices, tool and apps and other services, both personally and professionally

[2] In each country, samples were used of 1,000 women over the age of 18. These samples were representative of the wider “digitallyconnected” population in each country (which varies from over 90% in most of Europe, to 75% in Thailand, two-thirds in Mexico and approximately half in Nigeria). The same basic scope and methodology were used in our two previous surveys on the health and economic impact of Covid-19, published in 2020.