Digital challenges for new technologies implementation in agrarian Russia

Abstract

Over the past two decades, the digital divide has been gradually narrowing. However, rural areas still lag behind urban and suburban areas, especially in Internet use and access. The global pandemic of 2020 has exacerbated the effects of the digital divide. As part of this study, logistic regression models were built using data from 2019, 2020 and 2021 to study the digital divide and its predictors. The dependent variable is the number of individuals who did not have access to the Internet in the past 12 months. Average age, gender, income, disability, education and employment are selected as independent variables. The source of data is the annual Russian Monitoring of the Economic Situation and Health of the Population of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (RMES NRU HSE). In rural Russia, lockdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have exacerbated the impact of the digital divide on rural communities and led to socio-economic consequences due to limited opportunities. As a result of the implementation of social isolation and quarantine measures, lack of Internet access has become a major risk for vulnerable groups of the rural population. As a result, they are deprived of the vital resources they need to overcome the pandemic economically, socially and educationally. In 2019, 2020 and 2021, an increase in the same indicators increases the risk of residents without access to the Internet falling into the group. Such predictors include incomplete secondary education, lack of work, old age and disability. All of them are challenges for further digitalization of the Russian agricultural sector.