The world is facing a worker shortage. For the last few years, the World Economic Forum and others have been sounding the alarm on what they call “skills instability,” and many industries are scrambling to find qualified applicants. With women currently making up less than half of the global workforce, tapping into the gender gap could be the solution for the tech industry’s talent shortages. The best way to close the gap? Digital fluency. A new study by Accenture reinforces this idea, declaring, “Because women are underrepresented in the workforce in most countries, they are a significant source of untapped talent.” Digital Fluency Accenture’s study makes it clear that increased access to learning and using digital media results in a smaller gender gap, in both opportunity and advancement. “Our analysis highlights the importance of digital fluency in helping countries progress toward equality in the workplace,” explain the report’s authors. “Higher rates of digital fluency among women have higher rates of gender equality in the workplace.” Defining the Gap Accenture surveyed almost 5,000 women and men in 31 countries to measure their access to digital technologies, including smartphones, wearables, and other devices. Information gleaned from those surveys was cross-checked with data on internet usage gathered from the International Telecommunication Union (the United Nations agency for information and communication technologies). Accenture researchers also looked at three specific areas when creating their template for gender equality. They investigated how women use education in preparation of finding work, how they go about actually looking for a job, and how they advance in their careers. This information was then compared with data from the World Bank and the OECD. The numbers revealed ample evidence that digital fluency can “act as an accelerant in every stage of a person’s career.”...