A consistently overlooked theme in the discussions of how to build attractive and user-friendly services in emerging markets is the role of women in managing the household economy. Why is that mobile operators, financial service providers, and governments, often overlook women as important cogs in the wheels of mobile commerce in emerging markets?
Breadwinners and CFOs
An Ericsson ConsumerLab report portrayed women in rural communities in Sub-Saharan Africa as "family CFOs" of a gendered economy. In cases where men and women share a household, men are generally expected to be breadwinners and women responsible for household finances.
Men in emerging markets often claim primary financial responsibility, and know that they'll be asked for money for the household. Women, on the other hand, feel they are expected to make sure that the money lasts until the next pay day. This tendency is more pronounced in financially strained areas. The money may come from a business, or from personal savings, but regardless women simply save what they can, in case of unexpected expenses or shortages.
GSMA recently carried out a study into the role of women and mobile money as part of the mWomen program. The organization confirms that traditional financial tools largely underserve women in the countries it studied (namely Indonesia, Kenya, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, and Tanzania).
Convenience, Reliability, Security, and Privacy
It's not too late for mobile operators, and financial services, to look at the role women play in the uptake of mobile wallets. The need for convenient, reliable, and secure, mobile financial services is paramount if mobile commerce is to gain the kind of widespread acceptance it has gained in countries such as Kenya.
For example, privacy is an extremely important factor for women, as they don't like to always reveal how much they earn or spend due to safety fears in some rural communities.
Financial service providers can better meet women's financial management needs and mobile operators can achieve the desired scale and stability by addressing the concerns of women in emerging markets. I'll look at how they can do this in my next blog post.
What do you think about the role of women in the spread of mobile commerce in emerging markets? Share your thoughts below.
Written by: Lisa Elénius
Marketing Manager, M-commerce, Ericsson. Lisa joined Ericsson in 2013 and has been working in the telecom industry for over a decade. She has participated in launching mobile wallet services and mobile payment collaborations in three different markets in the Nordics. She is passionate about telecom and hopes that one day everything she now carries around in her purse will be on her mobile, except possibly for her make-up.