Identifying the Socioeconomic Factors of Women's Empowerment Using Digital Platforms: Exploratory Study in Erbil Governorate

Abstract

Women's employment plays a significant role in the economic and social development of society. However, in many conservative societies, particularly ours, obstacles hinder women's participation, such as the difficulty of securing employment in governmental and even private institutions. Therefore, recently, women have increasingly turned to digital platforms to facilitate their work. This research aims to identify the most important factors that contribute to women's socioeconomic empowerment through the use of digital platforms and to assess the extent to which this contributes to improving the socioeconomic situation of women in Erbil Governorate in 2024. The data was collected from a sample of 155 women. In this study, descriptive and analytical methods were adopted, such as frequency statistics for qualitative (categorical) variables, cross-sectional tabulation, and qualitative econometric analysis using categorical principal component analysis (CATPCA). The results showed that the studied variables can be organized into three latent dimensions that explain the total variance in the data: the first dimension includes economic/digital variables (income, expenditure, skills); the second dimension includes demographic/educational variables (age, education, time online); and the third dimension includes social/spatial variables (housing, education, expenditure). The results also revealed that economic factors are the most influential in empowering women, followed by digital factors, which expand their economic and social opportunities. Among the most important findings, we note that digital skills and internet spending are the strongest determinants; without them, it is difficult to achieve income or new opportunities. Education and age have an indirect effect, as young and educated people are more likely to acquire new skills and transform them into economic opportunities.