Aristotle says, ‘It is the injustice that the ordering of society is centered.’
According to the United Nations, World Day of Social Justice is celebrated on February 20 to promote full employment and support social integration. The Theme of World Day of Social Justice in 2020 was, ‘Closing the inequalities gap to achieve social justice,’ which certainly is an urgent issue to get addressed but has been in question for many decades. This year, however, is a little bit different. The 2021 Theme of World Day of Social Justice is “a call for social justice in the digital economy.”
What is the digital economy?
The word does not look unfamiliar. Actually, for a 21st-century citizen, it must be very familiar and easy to guess: it is the type of economy that is happening at a breakneck speed. The digital economy is a type of activity that gets achieved through online connections by people. Interconnecting organizations to sustain their functioning is the prime contributor to the rapid digital economic growth.
COVID 19 emphasized the growth of the digital economy. The pandemic led people to organize remote working arrangements, which eventually allowed many businesses to continue their activities. However, the benefits that the digital economy brings to developed countries are ironically exacerbating the inequality between developed and developing countries. It also draws a distinction between various classes of people within the country.
Digital economy status in India
The radical shift from hand labor to technological labor seemed to provide an opportunity to global markets, flexible working environments, and more. The reality is, however, infrastructures and social status of low-paid workers, typically women in India, are not provided such benefits. Taking just one report as an example, 72% of domestic workers lost jobs because of COVID 19, according to the UN women report.
Numerous factors might have contributed to this result but, taking into account the digital economy, the lack of availability, affordability in the use of information, and access to the internet contributed to these results. For women laborers in India, working in the low-end, high-end data and AI job opportunities are absolutely out of reach because of the gaps in gender equality and education opportunities.
Being aware of these problems accents the need to instantly aid these ongoing problems before the balance of equality completely collapses. For example, there can be feminist digital infrastructure policies[1] – a policy that highlights the adoption of digital policies to women. Organizations and individuals can accomplish this by providing direct education programs to women laborers.
[1] https://dh2016.adho.org/abstracts/233
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