Digital technologies (DTs) are increasingly recognized as crucial in addressing social issues related to inequality and enhancing the well-being and agency of socially marginalized groups. We however, provide evidence that, instead of alleviating social inequalities, use of DTs (re)produced and exacerbated these inequalities in disparate forms, for an already marginalized population. Based on a qualitative study of employees from five microfinance institutions (MFIs) in India that offer uncollateralized group loans to poor rural women, our findings demonstrate how the pursuit of financial gains through DTs in providing microfinance exacerbated mission drift in MFIs, leading to reduced quality and depth of outreach. The use of DTs undermined social and human capital development — both crucial for alleviating poverty — and widened exclusion rather than bridging the gap. We explicate the quality of outreach (i.e., quality of services provided) as an additional dimension of social outreach, alongside the depth of outreach (i.e., reaching poorer borrowers) for understanding mission drift. Our findings call for consideration of existing intersectional social inequalities when leveraging DTs for social causes.

中文翻译：

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数字技术加剧了小额信贷机构的使命漂移：来自印度的证据


数字技术 （DT） 越来越被认为在解决与不平等相关的社会问题以及提高社会边缘化群体的福祉和能动性方面至关重要。然而，我们提供的证据表明，DT 的使用非但没有缓解社会不平等，反而以不同的形式（重新）产生并加剧了这些不平等，适用于已经被边缘化的人群。基于对印度五家向贫困农村妇女提供无抵押贷款团体贷款的小额信贷机构 （MFI） 的员工的定性研究，我们的研究结果表明，通过 DT 在提供小额信贷方面追求经济收益如何加剧了 MFI 的使命漂移，导致外展的质量和深度降低。DT 的使用破坏了社会和人力资本发展——这两者都对减轻贫困至关重要——并扩大了排斥而不是缩小差距。我们将外展质量（即提供的服务质量）解释为社会外展的另一个维度，以及外展深度（即接触较贫困的借款人）以了解使命漂移。我们的研究结果呼吁在将 DT 用于社会事业时考虑现有的交叉社会不平等。