Do Information and Communication Technologies Empower Female Workers? Firm-Level Evidence from Viet Nam

Using Viet Nam’s comprehensive enterprise survey data, this paper finds that a firm’s adoption of broadband internet and related information and communication technologies (ICT) increased their relative demand for female and college-educated workers. The effect of ICT on a firm’s female employment is particularly strong among the college-educated employees and is weaker in industries that are more dependent on complex and interactive tasks. These results suggest that ICT reduces inequalities in female employment by creating a shift in labor demand from highly manual, routine tasks, where males have a comparative advantage toward more nonroutine tasks, where females hold a comparative advantage.