Towards a Digital Inclusion Index for South Africa

Abstract

Digital technologies have penetrated so many facets of people‘s lives that access to technology has become a dimension of social inclusion. It is widely assumed that access to digital technologies would result in higher standards of living and improved social welfare through interaction, commerce and learning in a global community and individuals without digital access will be excluded from this community. In order to leverage all the benefits and opportunities that the digital revolution promises, it is essential to include more citizens to the digital society. The Digital Inclusion Index is proposed as a tool to measure and examine the digital divide in South Africa.Current digital divide measurements are limited and narrow in focus. The Digital Inclusion Index proposed in this study is based on digital access levels of individuals to various digital technologies. The bi-annual AMPS survey results, containing data of more than 20 000 personal interviews, was used as secondary data. Factor analysis was used to assign a scale to each respondent‘s level of digital access. Descriptive statistics and Chi-Square cross tabulations were used to profile the different levels of digital access.The study aimed to understand the digital environment of South Africa by creating the Digital Inclusion Index which measures the digital divide. The index was then applied to profile various levels of digital access in term of individual attributes and geographical regions. A risk group was identified where individuals have limited digital access. The index was applied to 2009 data to determine whether the digital divide has been growing or narrowing between 2009 and 2010.