Demographic and territorial determinants of the variability of the degree of digital divide

Abstract

One of the inevitable outcomes of the development of information society is the phenomenon of digital divide. Unequal access to and unequal use of information and communication technologies (ICT) by Polish households affect the economic, social and demographic processes. The aim of the article is to determine the influence of demographic and territorial factors on the level of digital divide and its variability among Polish households in the years 2003–2015. The study was conducted on the basis of data from the reports of the Social Diagnosis and Statistics Poland’s data on households’ budgets, and utilised an original, author- -created indicator of digital divide. The results demonstrated that in the analysed period, the level of digital divide and its variability were growing when, on the one hand, the age of the members of the households taken into account in the research was, and on the other, when their number was decreasing. No influence of these persons’ sex or the region of residence was observed.