Digital Competence and the Gender Gap: A Case Study of Hospitality Students

While digital technologies are opening up new avenues for learning, they are also leading to social inequalities; for instance, they have given rise to the digital gender gap. Though a significant effort is being made to make internet access universal, currently, there exists a significant gender gap concerning access, ownership of digital devices, and digital competence (DC). Digital gender equality is one of the critical enablers of sustainable development, so there is a need to assess this gap and develop meaningful indicators for use in designing and implementing effective policies. Accordingly, this study aims to examine this gender divide in DC, specifically among the hospitality students in India. We use the quantitative survey method based on DigiComp framework 2.1 to collect data from a total of 359 hospitality graduates to capture their level of DC in terms of information and data literacy, communication, content creation, safety and problem-solving. Our findings suggest no gender difference in the parameters under study except for problem-solving competence, which includes the ability to solve technical problems, use technology creatively and identify needs and technological responses.