Gender differences in spending on information and communication technology and transport fuel intensity: Evidence from Ghana

Abstract

This study estimated the effects of spending on information and communication technology (ICT) on transport fuel intensity and examined how the effects of gender on transport fuel intensity depend on spending on ICT in expanding economies. It applied restricted dependent binary logistic regression to the Ghana Living Standards Survey of 14,009 households disaggregated into 4366 women’s and 9643 men’s households, respectively. The main findings were that ICT expenditures complement fuel intensity in transportation and that spending on ICT has a greater impact on the fuel intensity of transportation in urban households headed by women than in those headed by men. Additionally, the study revealed that households headed by men or women consume less fuel as their income increases, age has an effect on the fuel intensity of the male and full households but not the female households, and the fuel efficiency of female-headed households improved as family size increased. Finally, only female-headed households exhibit a significant correlation between transportation fuel intensity and job status. The original value of this paper is to show that reducing spending on ICT is much more desirable for reducing the intensity of transport fuel in a gender context in expanding urban economies.