W(h)ither the Digital Divide?

"[D]o we need to worry about the digital divide? And if we need to worry, what precisely do we need to worry about?..."

In light of these questions, this paper challenges the thesis that there is a growing digital divide between rich and poor. As context to this paper, consider the following argument: Information and communication technologies (ICTs) boost productivity (with issues related to the speed and degree of such a boost set aside for the time being). The wider availability of ICTs in rich countries, on this argument, will enable the rich to get richer, while leaving the poor behind. In short, not only is there a worrisome "digital divide" between rich and poor, but the divide is widening - with disconcerting consequences.

In this paper, two economists at the World Bank question the logic of this argument, arguing that the divide's size and importance have been overstated and that current trends suggest it is in fact shrinking rather than growing. They attribute this trend to the fact that, "within a few years of introduction of a technology, relative gaps in terms of access start to fall, pointing the way to convergence in access over the long term. It is nearly always the case that very new technologies emerge first in wealthy countries...what is impressive with the history of ICTs is how fast, and how increasingly fast, developing countries begin to catch up".

To support this conclusion, the authors present available data on the availability and use of telecommunications and the Internet worldwide to draw a picture of the digital divide as it is usually measured. They claim that "The large and widening differences in per-capita stocks and use of ICTs in absolute terms are real and affect the lives of hundreds of million of people. Nevertheless...this 'simple' digital divide story is neither particularly surprising nor does it tell the whole tale". In response to the question of whether developing countries are really falling behind, they indicate that the ICT gap between rich and poor countries is closing in relative terms - over the last 25 years, they say, telephone penetration has been expanding faster in low- and middle-income countries than it has in high-income countries. They detail a similar trend in Internet use: Growth rates of users per capita have been higher in poor countries than in rich ones since the early 1990s. Specifically, Internet usage grew by around 50% per year in high-income countries in the late 1990s, compared with 100% per year in low- and middle-income countries.

The implication of this position, according to authors, is that policies designed to "bridge the digital divide" may need rethinking.

Click here for the full paper in PDF format.