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The Digital Divide in the East Midlands: Intersectional Barriers to Skills and Social Connectivity for South Asian Women

    Cohort 2026 East Midlands Research Placement Project

    About The Project

    This research addresses the critical issue of digital exclusion among South Asian women in the East Midlands (specifically across Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. Despite increasing digitalisation in the ways we work, access essential information, and manage aspects of our daily lives, many women from South Asian backgrounds in our region remain “offline” or “limited users” due to a complex intersection of language barriers, socio-economic deprivation, and cultural norms that can restrict independent device ownership and confidence in basic digital skills.

    Digital inclusion is no longer a luxury but rather a necessity to enable people to access essential elements of civic and social life, especially the world of work. The questions remains is how can people who are excluded from an increasingly digitised world be support to become more “digitally fluent” in a way that will enable them to access more opportunity and resources for themselves.

    This project will work with Community Action Derby to explore the role that voluntary and community sector enterprises (VCSE) can play in addressing digital exclusion, within the context of employability, for minoritised groups like South Asian women through facilitating social connectivity and informal skills development.

    This evidence based will also help to inform new policies for EMMCA to support inclusive growth across the region.

    Project Aims 

    The overall aims of the project are:

    1. to identify specific cultural and structural barriers preventing South Asian women from being able to improve their digital skills literacy. The project will look develop an evidence that can help Community Action Derby to deliver more culturally appropriate digital literacy support, especially to bridge the “proxy-user” gap where women rely on their children or spouses to navigate digital resources.

    Project Team