IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/ucscec/qt2591v2w7.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Have we finally bridged the digital divide? Smart phone and Internet use patterns by race and ethnicity

Author

Listed:
  • Fairlie, Robert W

Abstract

Two decades ago an influential article documented the alarming disparities that existed in access to computers and the Internet between African-Americans and whites (Hoffman and Novak, 1998). Using the latest U.S. Census Bureau/Bureau of Labor Statistics data on computer and Internet access, I find that the “digital divide” has not been bridged and remains as large as it was two decades ago. African-Americans and Latino-Americans are less likely to use the Internet on smart phones, computer, tablets or other devices than are whites. A statistical decomposition analysis reveals that income and education inequalities are the leading causes of the disparities in access to technology. The findings have implications for policies that subsidize broadband to low-income families.

Suggested Citation

  • Fairlie, Robert W, 2017. "Have we finally bridged the digital divide? Smart phone and Internet use patterns by race and ethnicity," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt2591v2w7, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:ucscec:qt2591v2w7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/2591v2w7.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fairlie, Robert W, 1999. "The Absence of the African-American Owned Business: An Analysis of the Dynamics of Self-Employment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(1), pages 80-108, January.
    2. Alan S. Blinder, 1973. "Wage Discrimination: Reduced Form and Structural Estimates," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 8(4), pages 436-455.
    3. Oaxaca, Ronald, 1973. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(3), pages 693-709, October.
    4. Oaxaca, Ronald L. & Ransom, Michael R., 1994. "On discrimination and the decomposition of wage differentials," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 5-21, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Michael Levere & David Wittenburg & Martha Kovac & Stacie Feldman & Stacy Dale, "undated". "Promoting Opportunity Demonstration: Using Web Surveys for People with Disabilities," Mathematica Policy Research Reports dfeaec7f459d48f3b0b331e51, Mathematica Policy Research.
    2. Sarkar, Avijit & Pick, James B. & Rosales, Jessica, 2023. "Multivariate and geospatial analysis of technology utilization in US counties," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(7).
    3. Bauer, Anahid & Feir, Donn. L. & Gregg, Matthew T., 2022. "The tribal digital divide: Extent and Explanations," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(9).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marco Caliendo & Frank M. Fossen & Alexander Kritikos & Miriam Wetter, 2015. "The Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship: Not just a Matter of Personality," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 61(1), pages 202-238.
    2. Robert W. Fairlie & Alicia M. Robb, 2007. "Why Are Black-Owned Businesses Less Successful than White-Owned Businesses? The Role of Families, Inheritances, and Business Human Capital," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(2), pages 289-323.
    3. Girma Gezimu Gebre & Hiroshi Isoda & Dil Bahadur Rahut & Yuichiro Amekawa & Hisako Nomura, 2021. "Gender Gaps in Market Participation Among Individual and Joint Decision-Making Farm Households: Evidence from Southern Ethiopia," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 33(3), pages 649-683, June.
    4. Fairlie, Robert W., 2003. "An Extension of the Blinder-Oaxaca Decomposition Technique to Logit and Probit Models," Center Discussion Papers 28425, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    5. Fairlie Robert & Woodruff Christopher M., 2010. "Mexican-American Entrepreneurship," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-44, February.
    6. Fairlie, Robert W. & Lofstrom, Magnus, 2013. "Immigration and Entrepreneurship," IZA Discussion Papers 7669, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Paolo Nicola Barbieri, 2022. "Social distortion in weight perception: a decomposition of the obesity epidemic," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 39(2), pages 685-713, July.
    8. Frank M. Fossen, 2012. "Gender differences in entrepreneurial choice and risk aversion -- a decomposition based on a microeconometric model," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(14), pages 1795-1812, May.
    9. Wolff, François-Charles, 2012. "Decomposition of non-linear models using simulated residuals," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(3), pages 346-348.
    10. Laetitia Duval & François-Charles Wolff, 2016. "“I even met happy gypsies”," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 24(4), pages 727-764, October.
    11. Pavel Ciaian & Andrej Cupák & Ján Pokrivčák & Marian Rizov, 2018. "Food consumption and diet quality choices of Roma in Romania: a counterfactual analysis," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 10(2), pages 437-456, April.
    12. Andrew E. Burke & Michael A. Nolan & Felix R. FitzRoy, 2006. "Education and Regional Job Creation by the Self-Employed: The English North-South Divide," Papers on Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy 2006-07, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy Group.
    13. R. Mussa, 2014. "Extending the Oaxaca-Blinder Decomposition to the Independent Double Hurdle Model: With Application to Parental Spending on Education in Malawi," Studies in Economics and Econometrics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(3), pages 39-54, December.
    14. Andrew Burke & Felix Fitzroy & Michael Nolan, 2009. "Is there a North-South Divide in Self-employment in England?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(4), pages 529-544.
    15. Fairlie Robert W, 2004. "Race and the Digital Divide," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-40, September.
    16. Laetitia Duval & François-­charles Wolff, 2015. "" I Even Met Happy Gypsies " : Life Satisfaction of Roma Youth in the Balkans," Working Papers hal-01219250, HAL.
    17. Font, Joan Costa & Fabbri, Daniele & Gil, Joan, 2010. "Decomposing cross-country differences in levels of obesity and overweight: Does the social environment matter?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(8), pages 1185-1193, April.
    18. Gintare Mazeikaite & Cathal O’Donoghue & Denisa M. Sologon, 2019. "The Great Recession, financial strain and self-assessed health in Ireland," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 20(4), pages 579-596, June.
    19. Furdas, Marina & Kohn, Karsten, 2010. "What's the Difference?! Gender, Personality, and the Propensity to Start a Business," IZA Discussion Papers 4778, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Broussard, Nzinga H., 2019. "What explains gender differences in food insecurity?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 180-194.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cdl:ucscec:qt2591v2w7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecucsus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.