Paper short abstract:

This paper will find effect of social security programs on women material and subjective wellbeing. It also highlights the role of digital platforms in mitigating women’s vulnerability with special focus on mobile phones and internet as medium of awareness, communication and skill enhancement.

Paper long abstract:

Covid19 has adversely affected the capabilities and functionings of women and exacerbated their vulnerabilities in existing patriarchal structures. Consequently, countries have adopted several measures to alleviate poverty through social security and cash transfers. However, the advent of digital culture has redefined women’s wealth status by opening new civic space for women in Covid19. Therefore, the conventional wellbeing literature needs to account for this digital culture in the course of women’s material wellbeing. The existing literature, pertinent to digital culture, suggests that use of internet reduces disparities among the people by increasing productivity, improving markets, expanding linkages and strengthening human and social capital at large. Against this backdrop, this paper analyses women’s material wealth and the role of digital culture, as proxied by the awareness, and the use of mobile phones and internet, as an enabler to the environment conducive for women’s sustainable development. Moreover, it suggests policy implications for developing countries for investing in ICT in the post Covid world. Paper also evaluates the impact of cash transfers, social security programs and institutional support of women on their material and subjective wellbeing. This evaluation can be helpful in formulating policies for women in wake of Covid19. Our data set is composed of 74,010 women, aged between 15-49 years, and is taken from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (2017-2018). The Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression technique is employed. Our findings suggest that digital culture has played more significant role as compared to social security programs in enhancing women’s wellbeing.