Over 40 per cent of online learners are women, as per reports from various edtech companies. Internshala Trainings, a skilling platform of Internshala, has released a report that shows there has been a growth of 7.2x in the number of women opting for e-learning courses. A similar report from the learning platform Coursera also pointed out that the number of women learners in online programmes has increased to 38 per cent, up from 24 per cent in 2016. Some of the top courses chosen by women have been 'Foundations: Data, Data Everywhere', 'Foundations of Project Management', 'English for Career Development', UX design, python courses, public speaking programmes and more. Interestingly, nearly 41 per cent of these women were from tier-III cities of India. The same was observed in another report by iNurture, an edtech company. The report showed a growing trend of women from tier II cities opting for specialised courses in order to upgrade their skills and stay relevant in the ever-evolving job market. According to the report, there has been a 63 per cent increase in female enrolments from tier II cities in India in 2022, when compared to 2020. The growth was driven by cities such as Coimbatore, Indore, and Vijayawada. This has been followed by an increase in the overall gig hiring in tier II cities too, a report by Taskmo, a gig discovery platform, showed. Women’s participation from tier 1 cities is 42 per cent, 40 per cent in tier 2 cities and 18 per cent in tier 3 cities. The report also showed that women’s participation in the gig economy has increased from 24 per cent to 36 per cent this year, of which the majority of women gig workers belong to the age group of 19-35 years (total of 83 per cent). Another report by Coursera has shown that the maximum number of unconventional courses picked by women learners on their website are related to Korean and Chinese language, creative writing, writing novels, food and health, nutrition, poetry writing, modern art, photography and more.
