Gender equality in the digital world
INTRODUCTION
The URBACT Digi-Inclusion Action Planning Network is focused on increasing the digital inclusion of citizens living in small and medium size cities across Europe. People excluded from the digital world have far less opportunities than digital natives and those with greater digital skills, and since June 2023, the network partners have worked to identify the demographic characteristics which impact the digital exclusion. We see clearly that age, education level and income are among the main social categories driving the citizens’ exclusion from the digital world. But is gender also a key characteristic to take into account?
The Digi-inclusion network invited Dr. Mary Dellenbaugh-Losse to lead a session on gender equality and digital inclusion in May 2025, to highlight the gender and diversity considerations when designing policies that can perpetuate inequalities.
This session was a critical reminder of the principle of taking gender into account through the policy planning and development process: gender-sensitive language, gender disaggregated data and gender balance in decision-making are all critical.
All partners at network level agreed on tackling gender gaps, especially in the digital industry, even if they didn’t have it in the first place. As seen in other URBACT networks, data gathering might be challenging in small and medium cities with limited resources. Thus, having information about gender gap in the digital world is not always a given.
Nevertheless, many Digi-inclusion partners are building a clearer picture through data collection and analysis. In particular, survey results from the Lead Partner, Mollet del Vallès (Spain) showed significant differences among male and female digital skills as well as the self-perception of knowledge of the digital tools and technology.
