Women and digital government in rural India: Extending TAM with user assisted service

Abstract

Public service delivery is an essential component of e-governance initiatives but the digital divide limits citizens’ access to e-government services, especially in rural communities. The Digital India initiative launched Common Service Centers (CSCs) to mitigate the physical-digital divide issue. The privately operated local kiosks are meant to ensure easy access to digital government services in India’s remote pockets. Although the literature indicates that females generally have lower perceptions and adoption rates of digital government, existing studies commonly assume women directly interact with government websites. We know little about gender-specific experiences of digital government through the user assisted and privately operated local kiosks. This survey study utilizes the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to explore the gender-specific acceptance of public service through local kiosks in rural India. This paper argues that user-assisted kiosks help mitigate the gender digital divide by increasing the usefulness and ease of use of e-government, which improves rural women’s acceptance and use of digital government services. This field research brings insights from the developing world while recording women’s voices from underserved communities.

Digital inclusion for all? A gender-disaggregated analysis of e-government service use in Indonesia

“…Extensive research has been conducted on the factors influencing citizens’ decision to use e-government services in various contexts (Acilar, 2020; Alkhateeb and Abdalla, 2021; Arshad and Khurram, 2021; Choi and Park, 2013; Garín-Muñoz et al , 2019; Herdiana et al , 2022; Iong and Phillips, 2022; Mensah et al , 2022; Mohammadi, 2022; Pérez-Amaral et al , 2021; Soni and Mitchell, 2022; Xin et al , 2022). Nevertheless, there remains a gap in understanding the specific role that gender plays in these decisions.…”

“…Nevertheless, there remains a gap in understanding the specific role that gender plays in these decisions. While some studies have incorporated gender as a variable or compared the usage proportions of males and females in e-government services (Acilar, 2020; Alkhateeb and Abdalla, 2021; Anandhita and Ariansyah, 2018; Choi and Park, 2013; Garín-Muñoz et al , 2019; Pérez-Amaral et al , 2021; Soni and Mitchell, 2022), they do not comprehensively examine gender-specific factors in service adoption.…”