Publisher's Synopsis
Today, the cell phone is an almost universal tool. Despite its rapid expansion around the world, there are still disparities between men and women, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Indeed, it turns out that women are 10% and 15% less likely to own a cell phone than men, in LMICs and Sub-Saharan Africa respectively (GSMA, 2019). Cameroon is no exception to this pattern, as data from the fifth Demographic and Health Survey indicates that 77.3% of men own a cell phone in Cameroon, compared with 63.6% of women (a 14% gap). In light of this finding, the present study analyzes the influence of individual and contextual factors on the non-appropriation of cell phones by women in Cameroon. To achieve this, it has used data from the EDS-V survey. These data were used to carry out bivariate analyses between dependent and independent variables, to draw up a profile of women who had not appropriated a mobile phone, and to identify the main factors influencing women's use of mobile phones. and to identify the individual and contextual factors that explain this phenomenon.
