Fact of the Week: Internet Access Reduced Women’s Job Losses in Latin America During COVID-19

Source: Yuanchen Yang et al., “Digitalization and Employment Gender Gaps During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Latin America and the Caribbean,” International Monetary Fund (IMF), IMF Working Papers, no. 2024/012 (January 2024).

Commentary: A recent working paper by Yuanchen Yang et al. analyzed how access to digital technologies affected women’s labor force participation in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) during COVID-19. The data came from the High Frequency Phone Survey, which the World Bank and United Nations Development Programme jointly conducted between October and December of 2021. The survey asked a series of Yes/No questions regarding broadband access, along with other general demographic questions. The authors controlled for factors including GDP per capita, education level, the extent of women’s legal protection, and the proportion of women owning a bank account.

The study first looked at household-level results in the LAC region. When looking at the effect of internet access on overall labor force participation, the authors found that those with internet access had a 6–8 percent lower rate of pre-pandemic job loss. Those with internet also had a 3–6 percent higher rate of labor force participation at the time of the survey, compared to areas that lacked internet access. When looking specifically at women’s labor force participation, they found that women with internet access had a 5 percent lower rate of job pre-pandemic job loss and about a 4 percent increase in their labor force participation rate than those without internet. In particular, women with internet who also had children had about a 6 percent lower rate of pre-pandemic job loss.

When looking at broader country-level results, the authors found that a 1 percent increase in the proportion of internet users was associated with about a 0.07 percentage point increase in women’s labor force participation rate. When looking specifically at countries in the LAC region, a 1 percent increase in the proportion of internet users was associated with a 0.05 percentage point increase in women’s labor force participation rate. Additionally, a 1 percent increase in the proportion of internet users was associated with a 0.07–0.08 percentage point increase in the female-to-male participation ratio. In other words, higher rates of digitalization were associated with a smaller gap in labor force participation between women and men.