Digital Marketing Skills and Women’s Economic Empowerment in Bangladesh: Employment, Barriers, and Global Digital Participation

Abstract

This paper discusses the relationship between digital marketing skills and the economic empowerment of women in Bangladesh in terms of digital employment and their inclusion in the digital world and also considers the obstacles that limit women involvement in digital markets. A quantitative cross-sectional survey was carried out among 510 adult women who utilized digital platforms to find jobs, freelance, become entrepreneurs, promote their business, sell online, or other income-earning activities. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to evaluate the proposed model. The results of measurement were satisfactory, providing indicator reliability, internal consistency, convergent, and discriminant validity, and acceptable collinearity. Digital marketing skills revealed positive and significant measures with digital employment results and global digital engagement. Mediators both were found to be positively related with economic empowerment of women, but barriers of digital participation showed significant negative relations. There were also significant indirect effects in terms of digital employment outcomes and international digital engagement that substantiated the two mediation hypotheses. The model accounted 45.2% of the variation in the economic empowerment of women and was found to have significant predictive ability. These results indicate that digital capability generates economic value both by providing job opportunities domestically and involvement in international digital markets. The paper shows that the key elements to enhance economic empowerment of women in Bangladesh include skills, quality infrastructure, access to payment, professional connections, and less risky online space.