From Makola to Insta: Changing the Narrative of Ghanaian Women Traders

Much has been made of the potential of the digital economy to provide women with new or increased work opportunities. Our study brings nuance to this narrative by investigating the extent to which, within the socio-economic context of Ghana, different categories of women are able to leverage opportunities in the growing digital economy. Based on interviews with 40 female workers and eight experts in the Ghanaian digital space, our analysis suggests that social location (and particularly educational background) matters in the forms of work available to women and the benefits and challenges they experience. For this reason, the digital economy may reproduce similar intra-gender inequalities as those observed in "offline" work.