Digital Transformation and Social Inequality: Access, Exclusion, and Everyday Experiences

Abstract

Digital transformation and Finch-driven innovations are increasingly shaping everyday social and economic life, influencing access to financial services, welfare schemes, employment opportunities, and digital governance. As previous studies show, these developments are frequently framed as tools for inclusion, empowerment, and social justice, especially for women and marginalized groups. However, everyday experiences of digital engagement reveal persistent and uneven patterns of access, participation, and benefit, shaped by existing social inequalities related to class, gender, education, language, and location. This paper critically examines digital transformation as a social process and explores how Fin-tech-enabled digital systems intersect with gendered and structural inequalities in everyday life. It asks whether increased digital connectivity and financial digitization translate into meaningful inclusion and social justice, or whether they reproduce new forms of exclusion through barriers such as limited digital literacy, language constraints, lack of confidence, and reliance on informal support networks. By foregrounding lived experiences, the paper highlights how women and socially disadvantaged groups navigate, adapt to, and sometimes resist digital systems in their daily lives. The study draws on sociological perspectives, including digital divide theory, the social construction of technology, and the concepts of social and cultural capital. Based on empirical data collected through interviews and survey responses across diverse socioeconomic groups, the paper examines everyday coping strategies, informal learning practices, and social mediation that shape digital participation. The findings suggest that digital and Fin-tech-led transformations often mirror existing social hierarchies and, in some cases, deepen gendered and structural inequalities, even where basic digital infrastructure is available. By situating digital transformation within everyday social realities, this paper contributes to multidisciplinary debates on digital inclusion, sustainability, and social justice, and calls for more socially grounded and gender-sensitive approaches to digital policy in a globalized world. Keywords: Digital Transformation, Fin-tech, Gender Inequality, Social Justice, Digital Exclusion, Global South.