Gender approaches in the study of the digital economy: a systematic literature review

Digital technologies over the past 25 years have transformed socio-political and economic life, coinciding with global gender equality agendas initiated with the Beijing Platform for Action. While international discourse highlighted potential benefits of digitalization for women, the COVID-19 crisis exposed intensified gender inequalities in telework and care responsibilities, underscoring the need to clarify whether the digital economy is a source or consequence of unequal gender relations. This paper addresses the overarching research question: How has gender been studied in the digital economy? The study specifies three research questions: (i) How much research activity has been carried out into the interplay of gender and the digital economy and are there any trends? (ii) What gender approaches to the digital economy can be identified, and what are their strengths and weaknesses? (iii) What specific gender issues are being addressed? The paper aims to inform future feminist politics on the digital economy and guide policymakers towards gender equality. It outlines a broad framework on the digital economy and gender, details a systematic literature review (SLR) methodology, and presents mixed-method results to identify approaches and topics over time.

The paper develops a departing framework that conceptualizes the digital economy as encompassing technological advances (Internet, PCs, smartphones, social media, cloud, IoT, AI, machine learning, big data, blockchain, robotics) and diverse economic models (platform, sharing, gig, data economies), including social-economy-oriented platforms (open cooperatives, commons-based peer production) and corporate platform capitalism. The term gender, rooted in feminist scholarship, is understood as a constitutive element of social relations and a primary signifier of power, involving norms, practices, and structures. The framework contrasts surface-level gender analyses—often binary comparisons of men and women—with structural analyses that interrogate power inequalities, exclusion mechanisms, and the sexual division of labor. It anticipates a spectrum of gender approaches in the digital economy literature, ranging from feminist theories of technology and ICT to feminist political economy analyses and mainstream economic studies of women's participation, setting expectations for identifying multiple approaches and topics across disciplines.

The study employs a systematic literature review (SLR) to examine how gender has been studied in the digital economy from 1995 to June 2020. Design and planning: Research objectives were defined to (1) develop a broad conceptual framework, (2) quantify research volume and trends, (3) identify gender approaches and assess their strengths and weaknesses, and (4) distinguish specific gender issues. Keywords combined gender/feminist terms (feminism, feminist theory, gender, women) with digital economy terms (technology, ICT, digital economy, sharing/platform/gig economy), forming 20–25 search equations. Search engines: Google Scholar (primary, broad coverage across disciplines and formats) and Scopus (secondary, peer-reviewed focus). Inclusion/exclusion: (1) RQ1—include all Google Scholar results for the search equations (1995–June 2020). (2) RQ2/RQ3—include the first 25 results by relevance (1995–June 2020) for each search equation in Google Scholar and Scopus; exclude works not focusing on both digital economy and gender. (3) Further select the most significant works per identified approach/issue for in-depth analysis. Sampling and analysis: First sample (RQ1) comprised all GS results to provide a proxy of overall research volume and trends via quantitative comparative analysis. Second-stage sampling produced 495 works (clustered qualitatively by abstracts/introductions to identify approaches and topics). Third-stage selection yielded 166 works for in-depth qualitative content analysis to confirm approaches, assess strengths/weaknesses, and catalogue specific gender issues. Management tools included an open database and Zotero for organization. The SLR followed Tranfield et al.’s stages (planning, conducting, reporting).

- Research volume and trends (RQ1): Comparative counts from Google Scholar (1995–June 2020) show much higher usage of 'gender' (1,960,000) and 'women' (1,755,780) than 'feminist theory' (611,066) and 'feminism' (415,596), indicating a prevalence of surface-level gender analyses over explicitly feminist frameworks. By domain, 'technology' (4,481,000) and 'ICT' (235,340) dominate over 'digital economy' (37,230) and 'sharing/platform/gig economy' (23,032), suggesting the technological dimension has been more studied than the economic dimension. Critical feminist theory is applied more in technology/ICT than in economic aspects, where analyses more often center on women’s participation without structural critique. - Identified approaches (RQ2): In-depth analysis of 166 selected works reveals three main approaches: 1) Feminist theory of technology and ICT: Critical analyses grounded in technofeminism and social construction of technology; focus on gender embeddedness in technology, identity, symbolism, imaginaries, bias (e.g., AI), advocacy and design interventions; less emphasis on material economic impacts. 2) Feminist political economy: Analyses of power and capitalism, social reproduction, immaterial/free labor, commodification of domestic/care/leisure activities, intersectionality, critiques of neoliberal/post-racial narratives in the on-demand economy; centers gendered structures of accumulation and labor divisions. 3) Mainstream economic analysis of women’s participation and labor: Predominantly non-feminist frameworks focusing on access, digital divides, STEM participation, labor force outcomes, time-space flexibility; widely represented in policy reports by major institutions; tends to use binary comparisons and emphasize inclusion without challenging structural dynamics. - Specific gender issues (RQ3): Eight key issues cut across approaches (examples provided in Table 5): (1) gender embeddedness of digital technology; (2) feminist political agenda, advocacy, and empowerment; (3) gender-based violence and online harassment; (4) new forms of value creation and commodification (care/domestic/leisure/social media); (5) economic epistemology and sexual division of labor (productive vs. reproductive); (6) intersectionality and Global South perspectives; (7) women’s access to and use of the digital economy (digital divides, STEM participation, labor disparities); (8) time and space flexibility in platform/gig work and its implications for caregivers. Overall, the field lacks theoretical consistency and exhibits limited, unsystematized gender analysis of the digital economy’s economic dimension, with critical feminist perspectives more concentrated in technology/ICT than in platform/business model analyses.

The findings address the research questions by demonstrating that most literature uses gender as a descriptive category rather than applying feminist theoretical frameworks, particularly in economic analyses of the digital economy. This skew toward technology-focused feminist critiques, juxtaposed with mainstream, policy-oriented treatments of women’s participation and digital divides, reveals a fragmented field with limited structural analysis of how digital economic models reproduce gendered inequalities. Identifying three overarching approaches clarifies epistemological and methodological differences and highlights complementarities: feminist technology studies illuminate how technologies are gendered by design and discourse; feminist political economy uncovers how platform capitalism commodifies reproductive and affective labor and embeds intersectional power relations; mainstream analyses provide descriptive benchmarks and policy levers but often fall short of addressing root causes. The mapped eight issue areas show where critical insights are emerging (e.g., commodification of domestic labor, AI bias) and where gaps persist (e.g., explicit feminist critiques of platform business models). These insights are relevant for researchers and policymakers aiming to develop coherent, feminist-informed frameworks that move beyond inclusion toward transforming the structures producing digital-era gender inequalities.

The SLR shows that research on gender and the digital economy remains limited and unsystematized, with a need for deeper, more coherent engagement across disciplines. Three main approaches were identified—feminist theory of technology and ICT, feminist political economy, and mainstream economic analysis of women’s participation—each with strengths and limitations. The study catalogues eight key gender issue areas but underscores the paucity of direct feminist critiques of digital economic models and platform capitalism. Future work should develop an integrated framework articulating diverse gender dimensions and feminist qualities in the digital economy, foster dialogue across approaches, and expand explicit analyses of digital business models, platform economies, and gender plans specific to the digital sphere.

- The Google Scholar results used for RQ1 serve as a proxy for overall research volume and may include non–peer-reviewed items, duplicates, and discipline biases; counts by search terms may not perfectly reflect substantive engagement with gender/feminist theory. - Sampling for RQ2/RQ3 relied on the first 25 relevance-sorted results per query in Google Scholar and Scopus (1995–June 2020), potentially introducing selection bias and omitting relevant works outside top-ranked items. - The final in-depth sample (166 works) is a representative but non-exhaustive subset; findings cannot claim completeness of the literature. - The time window (1995–June 2020) excludes subsequent developments; fast-evolving areas (e.g., AI ethics, platform governance) may be underrepresented. - Heterogeneity across disciplines and document types complicates direct comparison and synthesis, and some areas (e.g., explicit feminist analyses of platform business models) remain underexplored.