Análisis de la brecha digital de género de poblaciones vulnerables y en riesgo de exclusión social

Laburpena

This doctoral dissertation has been presented in the form of thesis by publication. Many have been the lessons learned by each of us during the pandemic (COVID-19). Indeed, illness, isolation, distance, economic crisis, and fear have taught us to act differently. At a general level, this pandemic has highlighted two elements of common interest that are closely related to each other. The first is the importance of technology in this world that is moving towards digitization, and the second is the importance of supporting each other and creating an alliance against inequalities, because those who suffer the most in crisis situations are the most vulnerable. Today, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), represent an essential element in the personal and professional life of each one, affecting education, work, paperwork processing, even purchasing and transport, among others. This reality has been evidenced in the health crisis where almost everyone has had to switch to another way of working and teaching, which requires having and knowing how to use technology. However, this crisis has also shown that those who have had the most difficulties and the least have been able to access these advantages of ICTs have been the vulnerable populations, who were left out of many simple operations that any citizen of the world should know do. Among them are women, the elderly, citizens of rural areas, people with low income, the unemployed and people with low educational levels. In this thesis, we want to cover the threat posed by the different types of gaps and the factors that affect them, with a specific focus on women, since the gender factor cannot be ignored when half the planet has a woman's name, and it is what represents the main objective of the research work. To do this, we have opted for the use of simple and multiple regressions using Stata, SPSS, NVivo, Matlab and Octave software, which have allowed us to organize the study into six chapters. In the first chapter, an overview is given where the gender advances achieved and those that remain to be achieved are addressed, including the digital gender gap, which is measured in terms of access, use, enjoyment of ICTs, as well as for access to education and digital training, and participation in the labor market. In the second, a paper is presented on the relationship between the digital gender gap and the achievement of the sustainable development goals, which is specified in more detail in the following chapter and is adapted to the rural world. In the fourth chapter, an attempt is made to show the correlation between participation in the agrarian sector, especially in the branch of agriculture, with the variables of education and employment, offering a comparison between Spain and three of its neighboring countries: France, Morocco, and Algeria. The fifth chapter focuses on another category of vulnerable people who are migrant students. Finally, the main findings of the thesis are summarized in the last chapter, where recommendations are proposed to close these gaps and achieve sustainable development, and future lines of research are presented