Government figures reveal extent of UK digital divide

A third of low-income households have no home PC

Newly-released government figures have underlined the extent of the UK’s digital divide, with more than a third of low-income households having no home computer.

According to the Office for National Statistics, 75 per cent of UK households have a home computer, but those figures rise to 99 per for professionals, compared to 65 per cent for the long-term unemployed.

The figures were released amid calls for developed nations to invest in IT in the developing world, to prevent a global digital divide from widening.

Steven White and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth have now developed a contemporary map of the global digital divide, which they recently published.

The spread of technology would benefit people and economies across the globe, said White.

The researchers ranked countries into four tiers using a number of measures, including the number of PCs per 100 population, internet users per 100 population and internet bandwidth per person.

The results show a huge gap between the top and bottom tiers, which much be addressed to foster economic opportunities for all.

There were also some surprises, with 18 countries including Estonia and Jamaica scoring better than the US in terms of internet access and bandwidth available. This shows that GDP is not always a good predictor of internet access, said the researchers.

But White believes that mobile internet offers the most compelling method for closing the digital divide.

“Internet access through mobile phones is increasing rapidly and the developing world is embracing unique applications of the technology – such as digital wallets – faster than is the developing world,” he told Computing.

And the recent events in Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan underline the importance of internet access, he added. “In short, information is still power.”

In the UK, the government has launched a PC recycling scheme to tackle the digital divide.