Mobile divides: gender, socioeconomic status, and mobile phone use in Rwanda

Authors:
Joshua Blumenstock;Nathan Eagle
Affiliations:
U.C. Berkeley School of Information, Berkeley, CA;The Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM
Venue:
Proceedings of the 4th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development
Year:
2010

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Abstract

We combine data from a field survey with transaction log data from a mobile phone operator to provide new insight into daily patterns of mobile phone use in Rwanda. The analysis is divided into three parts. First, we present a statistical comparison of the general Rwandan population to the population of mobile phone owners in Rwanda. We find that phone owners are considerably wealthier, better educated, and more predominantly male than the general population. Second, we analyze patterns of phone use and access, based on self-reported survey data. We note statistically significant differences by gender; for instance, women are more likely to use shared phones than men. Third, we perform a quantitative analysis of calling patterns and social network structure using mobile operator billing logs. By these measures, the differences between men and women are more modest, but we observe vast differences in utilization between the relatively rich and the relatively poor. Taken together, the evidence in this paper suggests that phones are disproportionately owned and used by the privileged strata of Rwandan society.