It’s a well-documented fact that women are lagging men in workplace equality. Different reports peg the time to gender parity at as much as 100 years. Now new Accenture research shows that digital is helping to shorten that timeline and close gender gap and for women in the workplace. Our research examines how digital fluency – the extent to the extent to which people embrace and use digital technologies — is creating new opportunities for women throughout the career lifecycle, from education to employment to advancement, and helping to level the playing field for women at work.

1. Getting To Equal
How Digital is Helping Close the Gender Gap at Work
Copyright © 2016 Accenture All rights reserved.
Accenture, its logo, and High Performance
Delivered are trademarks of Accenture.

2. Copyright © 2016 Accenture All rights reserved. 2
THE ACCENTURE DIGITAL FLUENCY MODEL
Digital Fluency is the extent to which women and men embrace and use digital technologies to
become more knowledgeable, connected and effective
• The Accenture Digital Fluency Model
allows us to measure the extent to which
women and men are leveraging digital to
advance throughout their career
lifecycle. The score is out of a possible
100.
• Our Digital Fluency Model combines
data from our survey of 4,900 men and
women in 31 countries with published
data from respected sources like the
World Bank, OECD and the United
Nations.
• Through regression analysis, our model
is able to analyze the relationship
between, and estimate the effect of
Digital Fluency on career achievement.
Digital Fluency
Extent to which both
men and women have
embraced digital
technologies to
become more
knowledgeable,
connected and
effective.
Education
The level of education
women achieve
Employment
Getting a job and
remaining in the
workforce
Advancement
How well women are
doing as they move
towards leadership
Digital Fluency
Model –
Overall Score
The Driver Career Achievement
Overall Model

3. Copyright © 2016 Accenture All rights reserved. 3
THE ACCENTURE DIGITAL FLUENCY MODEL
The model shows how digitally fluent women and men are, and how much that fluency is helping
drive positive changes in their education, employment and advancement at work
• Men outscore women in every country
we studied.
• The US, Netherlands, Australia, UK and
Nordic countries (Sweden, Denmark,
Norway and Finland) have the highest
overall scores and rank amongst the top
performers on workplace equality.
• Increasing digital fluency in countries like
India, Indonesia, the Philippines and
Mexico will help improve outcomes in
education and employment.
• Women in, for example, Saudi Arabia,
Italy and Japan have reasonable levels
of digital fluency yet are not achieving
the outcomes we would expect. Digital
fluency alone is clearly not the solution
for every country – cultural factors are
another significant consideration.
Overall Model
Source: Accenture Digital Fluency Model, 2016
0.00 10.00 20.00 30.00 40.00 50.00 60.00 70.00 80.00
India
Indonesia
Philippines
Mexico
Saudi Arabia
South Africa
Greater China
Italy
Brazil
Japan
Korea, Rep.
Germany
Austria
Argentina
Singapore
United Arab Emirates
France
Switzerland
Ireland
Canada
Spain
United Kingdom
Nordic
Australia
Netherlands
United States
Digital Fluency Model - Women
DIGITAL FLUENCY EDUCATION EMPLOYMENT ADVANCEMENT
55 – top score
12 lowest score
41– mid score

4. Copyright © 2016 Accenture All rights reserved. 4
DIGITAL FLUENCY SCORES VARY WIDELY BETWEEN COUNTRIES AND
REGIONS
Nations with higher rates of digital fluency among women tend to have higher rates of equality in the
workplace
• The Netherlands, Nordic countries, US
and UK rank highest in terms of digital
fluency for women.
• Countries can improve gender equality in
the workplace by raising digital fluency
levels which, in turn, will help women
make gains in education, employment
and career advancement.
Score
22
Digital fluency scoreOverall score for women Rank: A lower rank means women are doing better relative to men22
Digital fluency
Source: Accenture Digital Fluency Model, 2016
Rank by Gap in
Career Achievements
(lower is better)
12
1
4
8
18
25
6
7
22
15
16
11
2
23
19
9
26
13
3
17
10
5
21
14
24
20[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
[CELLRANGE]
-5 5 15 25 35 45 55
Indonesia
India
Philippines
Mexico
Greater China
South Africa
Brazil
Argentina
Italy
Saudi Arabia
Austria
Singapore
Japan
France
Ireland
Germany
Switzerland
Korea, Rep.
Australia
Spain
United Arab Emirates
Canada
United Kingdom
United States
Nordic
Netherlands
Digital Fluency of Women

5. Copyright © 2016 Accenture All rights reserved. 5
GAPS BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN
The size of the gap in digital fluency between men and women varies greatly across countries and
regions.
• Increasing women’s digital fluency and
closing the gap improves equality at
work.
• The biggest gaps between the scores of
men and women are seen in Japan,
Singapore, France, Switzerland and the
Netherlands
• Why the differences? Men still use digital
more than women and are more
aggressive in pursuing digital fluency. In
some countries cultural norms are
holding women back despite there being
evidence that digital has released more
potential from women
Digital fluency
Source: Accenture Digital Fluency Model, 2016
MenWomen
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
65
70
UK
Irland
SouthKorea
Spain
Argentina
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
65
70
Japan
Singapore
France
Switzerland
Netherlands
Countries with the Biggest
Gender Gaps
Countries with the Smallest
Gender Gaps
DigitalFluencyscore

6. Copyright © 2016 Accenture All rights reserved. 6
0
20
40
60
80
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Education
Digital Fluency
Women Men
INFLUENCE OF DIGITAL FLUENCY ON EDUCATION
Education outcomes rise as digital fluency increases. In fact, women have achieved higher
education outcomes in 16 of the countries we studied.
• There is a strong relationship between
digital fluency and education.
• Digital fluency has helped to change the
game in education and has fuelled the
trend for women to overtake men in
secondary education and higher
education (university). In many countries,
women are better educated than men.
Women score higher than
men and pull away as their
digital fluency increases
Education
Source: Accenture Digital Fluency Model, 2016
Note: Chart depicts the statistical relationship (regression) between digital fluency and education. The steeper the slope of the line, the higher the effect of digital fluency on education.
Dots represent countries in our study – men (blue) and women (orange)

7. Copyright © 2016 Accenture All rights reserved. 7
EDUCATION LEVELS FOR WOMEN ARE RISING
Women are achieving more with each generation and aspirations for our daughters are high.
Percentage of Women Earning a College/University Degree or Higher
Education
Base = Working Women; n=1,745
80%
62%
35%
78%
59%
27%
79%
54%
23%
Respondent's Daughter(s)Survey RespondentRespondent's Mother(s)
Millennials Gen X Baby Boomers

8. Copyright © 2016 Accenture All rights reserved. 8
0
20
40
60
80
100
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Employment
Digital Fluency
Women Men
INFLUENCE OF DIGITAL FLUENCY ON EMPLOYMENT
Women’s ability to find and participate in work rises as digital fluency increases.
• There is a strong positive relationship
between digital fluency and employment.
• The impact of digital fluency on
employment opportunities is more
pronounced for women than for men,
evidenced by the steeper line on the
graph.
• This is helping to close the gap between
women and men in employment.
Employment
Source: Accenture Digital Fluency Model, 2016
Note: Chart depicts the statistical relationship (regression) between digital fluency and employment. The steeper the slope of the line, the higher the effect of digital fluency on employment.
Women still score below
men, but the gap closes as
digital fluency increases
Dots represent countries in our study – men (blue) and women (orange)

9. Copyright © 2016 Accenture All rights reserved. 9
INFLUENCE OF DIGITAL FLUENCY ON ADVANCEMENT AT WORK
Digital is beginning to accelerate women’s advancement in the workplace, but has not yet had an
effect on the gender pay gap
• There is a relationship, albeit a weak
one, between Digital Fluency and
advancement. It is only beginning to
accelerate opportunity for women in the
workplace.
• Digital also has a positive impact on pay
for both genders, HOWEVER, the pay
gap between men and women is not yet
closing.
• Interestingly, Millennials, the most
digitally fluent generation, are doing
worse, in terms of the pay gap, than the
Baby Boomers.
Survey responses show that men are by far the dominant earners by household
for all three generations
Gen XMillennials Baby Boomers
Advancement
Base = Working men and women (excluding those who live alone/single parent): 2,783
65% 70% 64%
22% 18%
23%
13% 12% 13%
Male highest earner Female highest earner Earn equal amounts

10. Copyright © 2016 Accenture All rights reserved. 10
0
20
40
60
80
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
CareerAchievement
Digital Fluency
Women Men
THE GENDER EQUALITY GAP AT WORK CLOSES AS DIGITAL FLUENCY
INCREASES
By combining all three of the career achievement measures (education, employment and
advancement) our model clearly shows the overall workplace gender gap closing as digital fluency
increases.
Career achievement (vertical axis)
represents the combined score for
education, employment and advancement
at work and offers a holistic view of the
influence of digital fluency on women’s
equality in preparing for work, finding work
and advancing at work.
Overall Model
Source: Accenture Digital Fluency Model, 2016
Note: Chart depicts the statistical relationship (calculated through regression analysis) between digital fluency and career achievement on the vertical axis. The steeper the slope of the line, the higher
the relationship.
Women still score below
men, but the gap closes as
digital fluency increases
Dots represent countries in our study – men (blue) and women (orange)

11. Copyright © 2016 Accenture All rights reserved. 11
DIGITAL HAS THE POWER TO ACCELERATE PROGRESS TOWARD GENDER
EQUALITY
If governments and businesses double the pace at which women become digitally fluent, countries
could significantly shorten the time to workplace gender equally.
Overall Model
Source: Accenture Digital Fluency Model, 2016
Note: Estimates are based on regression analysis to forecast what would happen to the overall digital fluency scores (i.e. our measure of equality) if the current pace at which women acquire digital skills
doubled.
20152015

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PEOPLE ARE OPTIMISTIC ABOUT THE FUTURE
Our survey shows that men and women alike believe that women will thrive as a wider variety of
working arrangements, enabled by digital, replace traditional ways of working.
70%
70%
Women
Men
70%
Millennial women
75%
Millennial men
(highest percentage among groups)
Base = Working men and women; n=3,528

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ABOUT US
About Accenture
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About Accenture Research
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Copyright © 2016 Accenture All rights reserved.
Accenture, its logo, and High Performance Delivered are trademarks of Accenture.