Abstract
AbstractThis article examines differences in home computer and internet access among Italian households between 2005 and 2016. The results indicate that while computer and internet penetration has increased across all educational levels and geographical areas, digital inequalities related to education still persist and are substantial, especially in the South. Additionally, the findings suggest that the digital gap at the bottom of the education distribution is widening over time. Access among households whose reference person has primary education or less lags behind that of households with lower secondary education. Policy measures to promote and support the adoption of digital technologies among the most educationally disadvantaged households may need to be strengthened.
Highlights
In many industrialised countries the number of households with computer and internet access at home is growing rapidly, there is still a large fraction of the population without such access
The European Commission (2020) has adopted an updated version of the Digital Education Action Plan (2021–2027) that lays out its vision for high-quality, inclusive and accessible digital education in Europe
The results from the baseline specification show that, while in 2005 households whose reference person had tertiary education were 31.1 percentage points more likely to have a computer at home than those whose reference person had upper secondary education or less, in 2016 this difference was reduced to 23.2 percentage points
Summary
In many industrialised countries the number of households with computer and internet access at home is growing rapidly, there is still a large fraction of the population without such access. Computer ownership and internet home access are practically essential in today's society, and they will be even more so in the future. This article examines differential household access to a computer and internet at home by education of the reference person in Italy, using annual data during the period 2005–16. Important insights about the digital divide may be lost by aggregating all lower-educated individuals/households into a single class. This does not allow us to detect whether there are relevant differences between individuals/households with poor education and those with a slightly higher education level.
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