Women grow with online learning and strengthen their economy

In Mexico, the pandemic brought the proportion of women enrolled in online courses to parity, increasing from 45% in 2017 to 50% in 2021. In addition, according to data from the Coursera platform, 72% of women and 79 % of men reported that they will continue learning online after the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the report presented by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group that focuses on support the private sector in emerging markets in more than 100 countries.

The research on Mexico is part of the report titled “Women and Online Learning in Emerging Markets,” developed in partnership with the global online learning platform, Coursera, and the European Commission. The report analyzes Coursera data to quantify women’s participation in online education, identify barriers to greater participation, and offer recommendations for the public and private sectors to improve lifelong opportunities and outcomes for women.

Within the framework of this work, The Economist Speaking with Jaylan ElShazly, program manager for Disruptive Technologies and Women’s Empowerment at IFC, she shares that research shows results that confirm that online learning offers different benefits to women.

Regarding the specific benefits for women, the research found that 40% of those who have taken courses on the digital platform have found new jobs, have opened new businesses or have improved their job performance. Furthermore, 16% say that after completing the courses they are more prepared and have more skills to apply for a job”.

Job losses for Latin American women were 2.5 times higher than for men, and the recovery has been slow, so the study shows that online education is a tool to find new jobs.

An entrepreneurial perspective was also included. In this case, women entrepreneurs indicate that, due to online education, “they have new skills, abilities, self-confidence and communication skills.”

The specialist assures that when we see the gender gap in education, countries in general have made great progress, even in many countries there are more women at this time accessing education than men, “the problem is that this closure of the The education gap does not necessarily translate into access to more job opportunities.”

Online learning offers an opportunity to find that more women can study due to flexibility, 50% of people indicate that, if it were not for this tool, they would not be able to continue their studies or would have to postpone them.

More women in STEM areas

“Today we see how the participation of women in different disciplines changes.” We still have more women concentrated in arts and humanities disciplines and fewer in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) areas. This phenomenon occurs in online education, however, in recent years women have been incorporated into STEM.

In this sense, something relevant that the research suggests is that when there is a female instructor in the course, the chances of more women being attracted increase (from 37% to 50%), which means that in areas where women are less represented, “we have an opportunity if we integrate women in charge of the courses to achieve gender parity.”

Quality of life

ElShazly assures that in developing countries there are various challenges, but also opportunities, especially since the evidence shows that completing courses after basic education and even a profession improves not only the income of people, but there are also benefits for health and improve civic participation.

But for this we have challenges such as Internet access, “in countries like Mexico only 70% of households have access to this service, so there is a gap to see how to connect the other 30%, even the image is even more clear when we look at rural areas and people’s incomes.”

nelly.toche@eleconomista.mx