Will mobile phone use facilitate women’s empowerment? : A quantitative study of women in Bangladesh

Abstract: Despite a steady economic and social development in Bangladesh, women are in an underprivileged situation in many ways. In this context, this thesis aims to explore the impact of mobile phone use on women’s empowerment in Bangladesh. The thesis employs ordered logit model and multinomial logit model using Financial Inclusion Insights (2017) survey data to investigate the relationship between mobile phone use and women’s empowerment. The main result of the thesis indicates that mobile phone use facilitates women’s empowerment in general, but mobile phone use does not give additional support for women’s empowerment in a male headed household. Moreover, social media use by one’s own mobile phone does not help women’s empowerment. The result of this thesis implies that mobile phone conversation does not make any difference in women’s performance to comply with gender norms. Another implication of the result is that mobile phone use itself does not ensure women’s increasing awareness about their rights and does not in all instances help defeat patriarchy. In addition, social media use may expand social networks, but using social media itself does not confirm that it helps women’s empowerment.