Does ICT change household decision-making power of the left-behind women? A Case from China

Abstract

With labor migration, patriarchal families in rural China are changing. Furthermore, informatization is altering family, social, and cultural norms and accessibility to relative resources. Gender differences in information technology, however, may precipitate a digital divide and aggravate gender power gaps in families. Rural families in which males migrate to cities for employment, leaving female spouses behind, are common in China. The influence of informatization on the distance in family power structure between male and female members await further exploration. Employing resource and cultural norm theories and the propensity score matching (PSM) method, this study analyzed effects of male spouse migration and ICT (information and communication technology) use on ‘left-behind’ women's household decision-making power. The results showed that having migrant husbands increased household decision-making power of left-behind women and enhanced gender equality in families. Left-behind women's cellular phone use bolstered their household decision-making power, while using computers had no apparent effect. Left-behind women may lack skills to operate computers except for entertainment and socializing. Thus, they do not reap human capital advantages from using them.