Recent Release | 18 Dec 2023

Ride-Hailing: a platform for Women’s economic Opportunity in Sri Lanka

Economic Consulting Team

Oxford Economics

Sri Lanka’s female labour force participation stood at 32%, far lower than that of men, reflecting the myriad of hurdles Sri Lankan women face in order to participate in the workforce. While socioeconomic barriers such as rooted gender norms and the imbalanced burden of household responsibilities play a role, the mobility challenge due to a lack of safe and reliable transport options is a major barrier in itself. From the mobility perspective, could ride-hailing services be the solution to boosting women’s workforce participation in Sri Lanka?

In collaboration with Uber, our latest report: “Ride-Hailing: A Platform for Women’s Economic Opportunity in Sri Lanka” explores the transport challenges limiting women’s economic participation in Colombo’s and the role that ride-hailing can play in overcoming them.

We surveyed over 10,000 riders across South Asia to understand whether ride-hailing can offer women a safer, more flexible, and reliable option for their work commute. Our innovative research combines these survey findings with a bespoke forward-looking model illustrating the economic potential of ride-hailing in 2028, and anecdotal stories from South Asian women who have personally benefitted from ride-hailing.

Our model finds that increased access to ride-hailing can encourage over 50,000 more women to join Colombo’s workforce by 2028, boosting Colombo’s economy by over 3%. Find out more about how ride-hailing services can benefit women, their families, and the wider city economy by 2028 in our report.

Read the Report

The experts behind the research

Our Economic Consulting team are world leaders in quantitative economic analysis, working with clients around the globe and across sectors to build models, forecast markets and evaluate interventions using state-of-the art techniques. Lead consultants on this project were:

Bali Kaur Sodhi

Lead Economist, Economic Consulting, Asia

Kankon Sen

Economist, Economic Impact Consulting, Asia

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