PSA Iloilo conducts first nat’l survey on women and ICT Development Index

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) in collaboration with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) will be conducting the first national survey on ICT focusing on women and girls in the country.

The Women and Information, and Communications Technology (ICT) Development Index (WIDI) Survey aims to gather baseline data on women and girls in terms of access, use, and skills in ICTs.

The information that will be obtained from the survey is essential for the government to craft appropriate evidence-based policies and programs to help women and girls in the productive use of ICTs.

Baseline indicators from the survey results shall reveal the different roles of women relative to technology use and shall present opportunities for their active participation in the ICT sector, leading to empowerment.

WIDI is a commitment to the Asia Pacific Women’s Information Network Center (APWINC) in 2019 which mandates the conduct of a national survey on women and ICT.

It aims to enrich the domain of women and ICT by establishing key indicators that will capture the situation of women focusing on aspects of the Digital Economy, ICT Access, and ICT Usage that are affecting women the most.

The current pandemic situation is forcing the workforce to rethink current livelihood and employment strategies to cope with diminished economic opportunities due to health protocols and limited mobility mandated by national directives.

The gender gap still exists in economic participation. The use of ICTs is seen to help the labor force cope with the new normal work arrangements, most especially those affecting women.

There is anecdotal evidence that ICTs enable the workforce to expand economic opportunities for women’s education, livelihood, and employment by using online platforms.

This Women and ICT Index Survey hopes to provide a more in-depth study of women and ICTs, especially on documenting how ICTs are used to expand women’s social, economic, and livelihood opportunities.

This survey aims to provide an added dimension to women’s participation in the Digital Economy by providing data on workforce participation in employment, livelihood, and entrepreneurship using ICTs and online digital platforms.

Thus, the overall objective of the survey is to obtain data on ICT access of women and girls, indicate the extent of ICT use for education, employment, livelihood, and entrepreneurship among women and girls in the past three months, and to obtain data that can be used for ICT planning and policymaking focused on women and girls.

PSA – Iloilo hired 4 Statistical Researchers or Field Interviewers under the supervision of Statistical Analyst Mae J. Pilapil, to interview 394 sample households in Iloilo City and 385 in Iloilo province.

The training started on Jan 17 until Jan 21, 2022.

Data collection of the survey runs from January 31 to February 26, 2022.