UPI fuels rural women's digital leap—but few own their phones

Mint

04-06-2025

Even as millions of rural women in India are using mobile phones and the internet, and making digital payments, many may be doing so on borrowed devices.
A new government survey of 142,065 people across India reveals a striking paradox: while 76.3% of rural women aged 15 and above use mobile phones—for personal calls or internet access—just 48.4% actually own one. That means more than a quarter of female mobile users in rural India don't own the device they use, exposing a deeper gap in digital agency and privacy.
These findings, from the Comprehensive Modular Survey: Telecom (CMS:T) conducted by the statistics ministry between January and March 2025, highlight how India's digital revolution, fuelled by affordable smartphones and cheap internet, still leaves large swathes of women behind.
In contrast, 89.5% of rural men use mobile phones, with an ownership rate of 80.7%.
Read this | How India pays online: UPI leads with 65% share, EMIs make up 20%—in charts
The gender gap is especially stark in states like West Bengal, where 80% of rural women use mobile phones, but only 43% own them, the largest gap recorded in the country. Madhya Pradesh (67% usage vs 32% ownership) and Uttar Pradesh (75% vs 43%) show similar trends. States such as Kerala (92% usage, 85% ownership) and Goa (94% usage, 90% ownership), however, demonstrate more equitable access.
Progress, but with caveats
The usage-ownership gap is significant, but it doesn't mean rural women haven't made progress in recent years.
Compared to the findings of Comprehensive Annual Modular Survey (CAMS), conducted between July 2022 and June 2023, more rural women are now using mobile phones and the internet, sending messages with attachments, and performing online banking transactions.
While the two surveys—CAMS 2022-23 and CMS:T 2025—aren't strictly comparable due to differences in duration and definitions, they still offer a sense of momentum. Mobile phone usage among rural women rose modestly by 1.4 percentage points, from 74.9% to 76.3%. But sharper gains were seen in internet use (up 15 percentage points), the ability to send attachments (up 13.9 points), and performing online transactions (up 12.9 points).
Gender gap persists
Despite notable improvements, the gender gap in digital access remains pronounced, much like in many other areas of life.
Younger rural women (aged 15–29) are better placed than the overall group of rural women (15 and above), but they still lag significantly behind their male counterparts.
Among the younger cohort, mobile phone and internet usage rates are nearly on par with rural men. But the disparities emerge sharply in phone ownership—81.2% of young rural men own a mobile phone, compared to just 56.9% of women—and in the ability to conduct online transactions (75.9% vs. 50.4%).
Read this | Cash transfers to women offer a quick fix but mask deeper problems
The gaps are even wider when looking at all rural women aged 15 and above. Mobile ownership and internet usage are skewed heavily in favour of men, though the gap in the ability to perform online transactions is only marginally smaller: 23.9 percentage points overall, versus 25.5 points among the younger age group.
UPI helps bridge the gap
Shifts in payment habits after demonetisation, the covid pandemic, and the widespread ease and accessibility of UPI have enabled more rural women to perform online transactions.
While just 30% of rural women are able to transact online, compared to 51% of urban women and 54% of rural men, nearly 89% of them rely solely on UPI. This suggests that low digital literacy and language barriers may be limiting the use of other payment modes like net banking.
Also read | Behind PAN data, a quiet story of women's rise in India's economy
UPI is popular across user groups, but urban men and women are far more likely to diversify into other forms of online banking. The data underscores how targeted innovations like UPI can meaningfully reduce access barriers for disadvantaged groups.