Information technology: a new dimension of social inequality in Latin America

Salvador Rivas, American Institutes for Research
Julieta Perez Amador, University of Wisconsin at Madison

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) the Internet is rapidly becoming a key ingredient in our economic infrastructure – akin to electricity and roads – as well as our social structures. As Latin America seeks to establish itself as a significant and important region in the global economic system, it is important to understand and help avoid an unequal diffusion of this new electronic medium or risk deepening the existing social inequalities within the various segments of its population. Using a series of logistic and fixed-effects regression models we examine these differences and others. More specifically, we focus on estimating the probability of having a computer and the Internet at home in relation to associated independent variables and when the data permit we explore the differences in usage at home and at school among young people age 12-29 focusing on gender and age differences.