Digital Gender Divide in Lagos State, Nigeria: An Evaluation and its Implication

Akerele Emmanuel Wasiu, Anchor University Lagos, Nigeria

Development is a mantra in Nigeria that governments sing about especially on assumption of office. But little do they know that western economies have depended solely on the education and skills of their population on the road to economic transformation and development. It is in this wise that digitization plays a crucial role in the quality of the population. Every population is divided across gender lines, that is, male or female. From existing literature, in Nigeria, men have more access to digital devices than women do and ironically, women are larger in population and are more enterprising than men. Women dominate in the business sector in the country. But unfortunately, instead of harnessing this strength, the female folks have been bitterly marginalized from the digitized world in Nigeria. The role of women is crucial in that it ought to contribute to the development story of the country if and only if women are given equal opportunity as the men have in the aspect of digitization. Digitization promotes business enterprises especially in the age of globalization. Women for all reasons (values, level of education, technical knowledge but to mention a few) that are societal have been tactically marginalized in the African community. This paper, therefore, seeks to investigate other reasons for which women have been marginalized. To also examine the implication of this divide on the road to the country’s development will be an objective this paper seeks to achieve. To find out what can be done to remedy this divide. This paper adopts a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodology. Secondary sources of information will be adopted. It will not be sufficient to bank on secondary sources of information so it will be coupled with a structured interview. The paper rests on inequality theory as a way of interrogating factors responsible for the divide- natural or societal? The paper concludes that for sustainable economic development, the “gender divide” should be rolled away and that women should be integrated and given equal opportunity as men.