Digital Divide: Empirical Study of CIUS 2020

Abstract

As Canada and other major economies consider implementing "digital money" or Central Bank Digital Currencies, understanding how demographic and geographic factors influence public engagement with digital technologies becomes increasingly important. This paper uses data from the 2020 Canadian Internet Use Survey and employs survey-adapted Lasso inference methods to identify individual socio-economic and demographic characteristics determining the digital divide in Canada. We also introduce a score to measure and compare the digital literacy of various segments of Canadian population. Our findings reveal that disparities in the use of e.g. online banking, emailing, and digital payments exist across different demographic and socio-economic groups. In addition, we document the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on internet use in Canada and describe changes in the characteristics of Canadian internet users over the last decade.

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