By Janet Wandia

Women’s participation in the labour force across Africa is considerably lower than that of men. In 2020, only ~52% of women in Africa participated in the labour market, compared to ~72% of men. In North Africa, only a quarter of women participate in the labour market.

Despite these headwinds, women on jobtech platforms in Africa appear to be outperforming men. Since 2023, Jobtech Alliance has analyzed earnings data from 78,000 users across multiple jobtech platforms in Sub-Saharan Africa. Based on this data, we found that while only 45% of those earning any money are women, 48% of those earning quality income across those platforms are women. In fact, the monthly average income among women users is 24% higher than that of men. 

Women users outperform men on platforms. That’s great news for gender inclusivity. But why does this account for a business case for intentionally targeting women on platforms? (Almost) all jobtech platforms make money from their users completing work and platforms earning a commission or profit from the work completed. These platforms typically need to spend money acquiring, onboarding, and training users or workers. The more money they earn through the platforms, the better it is for the business. The more the earnings, the better the business case. Moreover, women stay longer on platforms. Our data shows that they have a 19% higher retention rate than men. There is less cost in acquiring, onboarding, and training female workers than their male counterparts. Even better for the business case.

This may just be an extension of a phenomenon that we’ve seen across different sectors where women, when given the opportunity to overcome traditional systemic barriers, outperform their male counterparts. For example, while loans were traditionally far more available to men, evidence from the microfinance sector consistently shows that women demonstrate higher repayment rates on loans than men.

Emerging evidence demonstrates the need to ensure that 50% of potential users are not left ‘behind’ and intentionally target women users as they might be the best performers and thus offer the strongest business case for investment. We’ve seen this happen in the financial services outlined above, where financial institutions explore gender-intentional credit scoring. 

Understanding these phenomena will be a major body of research for Jobtech Alliance over the coming year, but we certainly have hypotheses of why women are doing so well on jobtech platforms in Africa:

We also see significant practical examples from the jobtech sector where there is a business case for doing so:

• Microtasks platforms: are very attractive to women due to their level of flexibility in terms of work times and work location. Our data shows that ~58% of people earning from these types of platforms in Africa are women. For instance, Rwazi, which enables anyone to sign up to collect data and get paid on a per-gig basis, has 58% women users.

• Agent models: As we’ve discussed previously, there is a strong business case for better targeting of women in agent models as they can enable the platforms to better reach female customers and because they often have greater trust, loyalty, and performance. 

“While we have more men download the Avunja app, women tend to be loyal and have higher retention levels than men. They love the flexibility, reliable earning opportunities and community building aspects of Avunja. They are very focussed and get a lot more sales done! This is why most promotions to team leaders and sales anchors tend to be women.”  Marianne Mwaniki, Founder of super agent app, Avunja

Moreover, GSMA noted that, “Nine of the 10 operators interviewed recognised that female agents tend to attract more female customers than men.” A World Bank Study in the Democratic Republic of Congo found that, after accounting for relevant influencing factors, female customers are, on average, 7.5% more likely to transact with a female agent, and their transactions with female agents are 66% higher than with male agents. 

• Digital creator platforms: Women are expected to represent half of the 50 million creative sector jobs globally, and platforms can be particularly effective in enabling access for female creators, who may be excluded through traditional who-you-know networks and who can thrive when given access through digital platforms. For example, on the influencer matching platform Wowzi, while women represent only 33% of influencers, they represent 53% of those achieving quality jobs, earn 23% more than men, and have a 23% better retention rate.

• Home services platforms: Women represent approximately 70% of Africa’s domestic workers. In fact, female domestic workers account for 13.6% of all paid women employees on the continent. Platforms in this sector will, therefore, only thrive by adequately addressing the needs of female users. 

There are many cautions we have when reading this data too. Are women outperforming men just because they have few other options? Are they more willing to accept lower-quality work? Would the results be even greater without gendered algorithmic biases or safety risks for women on platforms? While we maintain caution as we understand the data, the evidence so far is encouraging, at least in the business case for platforms targeting women.

Platforms play a central role in encouraging more women to join the digital sphere

High women participation and performance on jobtech platforms – though remarkable – is not achieved without platforms building intentionally for women users. As with any user group, to most effectively engage users, you need to understand how to reach them, how they work, how to give them safety, how to retain them, and more. As our data shows, it makes business sense to do so.

We’ll be sharing more about our Women in Jobtech Framework soon to help you determine whether you’re building your platform to make the most of this business opportunity.

The author is the Gender Lead at the Jobtech Alliance