[kictanet] Policy Brief - Mobile Data Plans in Kenya - Quantifying Women’s Access to the Digital World

Wed May 3 14:42:04 EAT 2017

Thanks for sharing this.

I found it a very interesting and informative read and like any research it
raised some more questions for me.

And like you, I see opportunities for policy actions therefrom especially
for dealing with some of the nuanced gender related use or non-use.

Cheers,
Florence Etta

On Wed, May 3, 2017 at 2:30 PM, Berhan Taye Gemeda via kictanet <
kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

> Dear Listers,
>
> Kindly see below a summary policy brief that examines which mobile data
> plans people use in Kenya drafted by the Alliance for Affordable Internet
> <http://a4ai.org/>. The full draft of the policy brief is also linked at
> the end of the summary.
>
> Our results indicate that there are a few significant policy implications.
> We kindly ask you to review the policy brief linked below and leave your
> comments and suggestions and/or send comments directly to me @
> berhan.taye at webfoundation.org by 12 May 2017.
>
> Thank you very much in advance for your comments and feedback.
>
> ---
>
> *Mobile Data Plans in Kenya - Quantifying Women’s Access to the Digital
> World *
>
>
>
> In this policy brief, we explore the level of Internet access Kenyan women
> and men have via their mobile phones. Using a quota sampling approach, we
> administered a set of mobile phone-based surveys to 500 female and 500 male
> Kenyans that use the Internet on their cell phones.[1] We classify mobile
> data bundles offered by Safaricom, Airtel Kenya, and Orange Kenya as
> full-cost, service specific, and zero-rated data packages.[2]
>
> Our result indicates that *women, in general, are more likely to use
> full-cost data bundles and pay the full advertised amount for their data
> than men *(when controlling for age, education, employment, and other
> factors) - 74% of Kenyan women use full-cost plans, while only 67% of men
> use the same package. However, *even though women prefer to pay for the
> advertised price of a data plan, they buy the smallest data bundles when
> compared to men*.[3]  For instance,  35% of women buy 150MB of data,
> spending less than 199Ksh weekly,  while only 24.7% of men resort to the
> cheapest data bundles. Women also tend to buy 350MB and 1024MB more
> frequently.[4] However, men categorically buy data bundles that are
> larger than 1GB  when compared to women.  This finding is a significant
> indicator of the limited spending power of Kenyan women and their ability
> to purchase mobile data packages and connect to the digital world.
>
> Moreover, we also find that the reverse is true for service-specific and
> zero-rated data plans: *more men prefer to use service-specific and
> zero-rated services than women.*[5]  15% and 2.8% of men use
> service-specific and zero-rated data bundles while only 4.4% and 1% of
> women use these bundles, respectively. This result indicates that men are
> more likely to use cheaper and subsidized data packages that offer access
> to a few websites and apps. This is possibly because in some cases (e.g.,
> sports tv data bundles) the services appeal more to men.
>
> In sum, we postulate that these findings have a few policy implications:
> first, our analysis raises questions about why there should be different
> patterns in mobile data consumption between men and women. To better
> understand this it is essential that the Communications Authority of Kenya
> mandates operators and its institutions to gender disaggregate the data
> they publish. Second, seeing that women can only afford to buy the smallest
> data bundles, it is essential that we pursue policy and regulatory reform
> to lower industry cost structures which can help improve affordability for
> all. Lastly, to the extent where service-specific and zero-rated programs
> are allowed under the Kenyan laws and related net neutrality principles,
> the content of service-specific and zero-rated programs should better
> target the needs of both women and men.
>
> For more details, please refer to the draft full policy brief here
> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C_wAlfHwgoaIURrp3DR_oBs3sd0FKRsxSeWn_MJMvW4/edit?usp=sharing>
> .
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> [1] We used mobile phone Internet users as our primary focus because 99%
> of Internet subscriptions are via mobile phones in Kenya
> <http://www.ca.go.ke/images/downloads/PUBLICATIONS/ANNUALREPORTS/Annual%20Report%20for%20the%20Financial%20Year%202015-2016.pdf>.
> Surveys were carried out between January-March 2016.
>
> [2] Full-cost data bundle  customers pay the full advertised amount for a
> data bundle and can access the entire content of the web; Service specific
> subscribers  pay a cheaper or subsidized price and access very limited
> websites and apps like Facebook and Whatsapp; Zero-rated data plans are
> free, and the content is limited to zero--rated websites like  Wikipedia
> and Facebook Zero.
>
> [3] The data bundles offered by the MNOs range from 150MB to 6144MB and
> cost between 199Ksh and 10,000Ksh.
>
> [4] Data bundles that women buy more than men are all data packages
> provided by Safaricom.
>
> [5] When holding age, education, employment, and other factors at a
> constant, this finding still holds true.
>
>
>
> *--*
> *Berhan Taye *
> Ford-Mozilla Open Web Fellow
> @btayeg <http://twitter.com/btayeg>
>
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