The digital divide

Over the last twenty years, information technology (IT) has grown from extreme high tech machinery to affordable communication tools, at least in developed countries. The internet and other computer-based applications have drastically changed the way people work, teach and learn. Even if this technologic breakthrough appears as a very powerful tool to make knowledge available to everyone, and thus reduce inequality, IT leaves behind significant parts of the population. In developed countries, people are excluded from this virtual community because they lack the skills to access online media. In underdeveloped countries, where the problem is even deeper, most people don't even have access to a computer.

As computer use becomes a prerequisite to be an actor of the world economy, there are several reasons to believe this Information Revolution will result in a “Digital Divide” that may increase inequalities. Is this growth of inequality in developed countries a transitory phenomenon that will correct itself? Can IT help poorer countries to catch-up with richer countries?

From 1994 to 2000, the NASDAQ index rose from 775 to more than 4'600, which represents a 600% increase. Even if we know today this index - heavily influenced by price of high-tech stocks- was overestimated, there has been undeniably at the end of the twentieth century a boom of the IT industry. The innovations in IT have started to transform the organization of economic activity and its conception.

In most developed countries, the IT development coincides with the widening of the gap between low-income workers and high-income workers. In the United States for example, statistics show that the poorest citizens earn less in comparison to the richest citizens than twenty years ago. Economists think this polarization is mostly due to an increasing demand for highly qualified labor, thus making it harder for low-skilled workers to be competitive candidates on the job market.

In fact, computers only change the productivity of some workers, but not of all of them: workers who do not use computers will not be made more productive by this technological breakthrough. Both low-skilled and high-skilled workers may be better off by taking advantage of the benefits information technology can bring, but the effect on their income will not be equal, which would result on the macroeconomic scale in an increase of inequality.

In developed countries, we might tend to think this inequality would result in a stimulus for young people to get a better education, in order to have a better salary. Reducing the difference of skill levels would probably reduce inequality on the long term.

Technology not only increases inequality within the workforce in developed countries, but also exacerbates inequality between developing and developed countries. Most developing countries do not have the infrastructure to take part as equal partners in this worldwide media adventure. According to Bruce Girard, former director of Latin America's community radio Pulsar, the 20% of world population that live in developed country possess 95% of all computers and 75% of the world's telephone lines. Information Technology seems only for the happy few.

“While this phenomenon can be illustrated by the American example above, India brings another interesting argument to the debate. Food First, the “Institute for Food and Development Policy” claims in one of its report that the idea that IT revolution benefits the poor in India is a myth. "Information technology only contributes 2 percent of total GDP and employs fewer than one million people” the report said, whereas more than "230 million people are employed in the agricultural sector," and they are "unlikely to benefit directly from the technology boom". In India, there are approximately 1.5 telephone lines per 100 persons: most scientists do not have the telephone, the internet, and their universities receive only a few international newspapers. With such poor IT equipment, it seems obvious that developing countries are excluded form the Information Revolution.

Whereas IT is a major step towards and broadens our perspectives for human future, the effect both at the national and international scale is to increase inequality. How can low-skilled workers get in the pace of accelerated modernization? How can a developing country use IT to catch up with the first world if its scientists cannot even browse the internet? Paradoxically, IT comes across as a major impediment to the development of third world countries, and the reduction of inequalities.

Retrouvez cet article dans le numéro d'OpinionS de mars 2007

16/11/2007

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