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Cellular Phone Outcome
"54% of Grameen Bank member phone users in our survey indicated
that they were willing to spend between 100 to 300 Taka ($2 to $6 USD)
for a three minute phone call involving a financial matter with a family
member overseas, and 27% said they were willing to spend between 300
to 600 Taka ($6 to $12.25 USD) for this kind of call. Given an average
reported monthly income of 5,000 Taka ($102 USD) for respondents' households,
these figures represent significant proportions of monthly household
income ranging from 2% to 12%.
"The main reasons Grameen Bank members reported for using the
telephone are discussions of financial matters with family, including
discussions of remittances (42%) and social calls to family and friends
(44%), accounting for 86% of all calls. The Village Phone is used more
by respondents for receiving incoming calls than for dialing out of
the village.
"Universal access is not gender neutral. In the case of Bangladesh,
the gender of the Village Phone operator and the physical placement
of the phone within a gendered village context can either inhibit or
improve women's access to phones. A woman's home provides a space that
is acceptable for other village women to access. Our findings indicate
clearly that when women are VP operators, women who are Grameen Bank
members are more likely to feel comfortable using a phone and will more
likely have more equitable access to a phone. From the standpoint of
revenue generation and profitability, it is important to ensure that
the Village Phone is fully accessible to the entire village population:
if 50% of the user base faces obstacles to phone use, then a significant
revenue stream is lost.
"52% of female phone users responded that they preferred to use
a phone operated by a woman phone owner, 2% preferred a male phone owner,
and 46% had no preference.
"When we reviewed our data to examine research sites where Village
Phones were operated by men, we found that only 6.25% of Grameen Bank
member phone users were recorded as women. In comparison, where the
operators are female, 82% of the Grameen Bank member phone users were
recorded as women. The latter is, of course, expected given the high
proportion of Grameen Bank members who are women, but this fact only
highlights the differential access afforded by VPs operated by men."
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