The digital gap in Spanish households: Sociodemographic factors that explain the availability of ITC in times of the COVID-19 global pandemic

ABSTRACT

Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the government of Spain declared the State of Alarm in March 2020. One of its consequences has been the increase in remote working and online teaching-learning processes. Taking homes as unit of analysis, the data given by the Survey on Equipment and Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Households conducted by the Spanish National Institute of Statistics is analysed. Two different analyses were undertaken A descriptive analysis on the variable possession of a computer and internet broadband (constructed from those offered by the aforementioned survey) and a logistic regression analysis on sociodemographic factors that explain the availability of ICT. The results indicate that the household model is the principal variable to explain the digital gap more accurately than other factors such as economic aspects or educational levels of those responsible for the household. © 2022, Fundacion Sistema. All rights reserved.