It’s a well-documented fact that women are lagging men in workplace equality. Different reports have pegged the time to gender parity at as much as 100 years. Now new Accenture research is proving that digital fluency—the extent to which both men and women have embraced digital technologies to become more knowledgeable, connected and effective—is helping to close this gender gap and level the playing field for women in the workplace.
Accenture’s Digital Fluency Model examines the impact of digital technologies across women’s entire career lifecycle. Nearly 5,000 women and men in 31 countries were surveyed to gauge their familiarity with digital technologies. While men outscore women in digital fluency across almost all of the 31 countries studied, that gap is narrowing and digital fluency acts as an accelerant in every stage of a person’s career—a powerful one in education and in the workplace, and an increasingly important one as they advance into the ranks of leadership.
Why is this? Digital fluency is helping today’s workers better manage their time and become more productive. Digital fluency also enables greater work flexibility—an amenity that workers value and companies are now providing. While men and women alike are liberated by the balance that work flexibility affords, women appear to derive greater value from it.
Getting on the right side of the digital fluency gap can change the picture for women—and their countries—in dramatic ways.
If governments and businesses can double the pace at which women become digitally fluent, we could reach gender equality in the workplace by 2040 in developed nations and by 2060 in developing nations.
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