Impact of Education and IT on Women Empowerment in India

With the unequal distribution of technology within our society throughout the world, a ‘digital divide' has set in. This ‘gap' can be filled to some extent by providing ready access to Information and Communication Technology to women at par to men. Recent developments in the IT industry have tremendously improved access to infinite information with the click of a mouse or touch with a finger tip and also the options to learn have become enormously large. IT has globally changed the way people think, work, communicate and live. The IT revolution has changed the very basic structure of society. According to India Census 2011, the female sex ratio is 940 per 1000 males in the total population of over 1.21 billion people. IT can play a major role in the personal, social and economic development of females which are nearly 50% of the total population. The initiative taken by the government of Digital India Mission (NeGP 2.0) can transform India into a digitally empowered society and can help fulfill the dream of a ‘gender just society'. Technology backed up by knowledge and education can remove gender disparity and help uplift the status of women from all segments be it rural or urban. IT industry in India is nearly $60 billion industry today. It provides great opportunities to its stakeholders to work anytime and anywhere. The IT industry is providing many attractive benefits to its women employees to strike a balance between work and home. Such benefits have been taken very positively as has been proved by many women entrepreneurs throughout India. This paper tries to summarize the role what education and IT has to play to empower women in India.