IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/apecpp/v43y2021i1p458-464.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Revisiting the Digital Divide in the COVID‐19 Era

Author

Listed:
  • John Lai
  • Nicole O. Widmar

Abstract

The digital divide limits opportunities for those without ready access to Internet. Movement online of essential activities during COVID‐19 took inadequate Internet service from inconvenient to emergency/crisis for many households. A negative correlation between rurality and Internet speed was found at the county level, highlighting the struggle for rural areas. Schools tackle challenges of providing equitable educational access by attempting to provide access for students, while even households with service available struggle to maintain sufficient speeds and/or can afford it. Essential activities moved online, yet sufficient Internet is an essential public service that remains unattainable for many US households.

Suggested Citation

  • John Lai & Nicole O. Widmar, 2021. "Revisiting the Digital Divide in the COVID‐19 Era," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(1), pages 458-464, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:apecpp:v:43:y:2021:i:1:p:458-464
    DOI: 10.1002/aepp.13104
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13104
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/aepp.13104?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Lai & Nicole O. Widmar & Courtney Bir, 2020. "Eliciting Consumer Willingness to Pay for Home Internet Service: Closing the Digital Divide in the State of Indiana," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(2), pages 263-282, June.
    2. Amy M.G. Kandilov & Ivan T. Kandilov & Xiangping Liu & Mitch Renkow, 2017. "The Impact of Broadband on U.S. Agriculture: An Evaluation of the USDA Broadband Loan Program," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 39(4), pages 635-661.
    3. Thia Hennessy & Doris Läpple & Brian Moran, 2016. "The Digital Divide in Farming: A Problem of Access or Engagement?," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 38(3), pages 474-491.
    4. LaRose, Robert & Gregg, Jennifer L. & Strover, Sharon & Straubhaar, Joseph & Carpenter, Serena, 0. "Closing the rural broadband gap: Promoting adoption of the Internet in rural America," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(6-7), pages 359-373, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bruno, Giuseppe & Diglio, Antonio & Piccolo, Carmela & Pipicelli, Eduardo, 2023. "A reduced Composite Indicator for Digital Divide measurement at the regional level: An application to the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI)," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    2. Anzhela Popyk & Paula Pustułka, 2023. "Educational Disadvantages During COVID-19 Pandemic Faced by Migrant Schoolchildren in Poland," Journal of International Migration and Integration, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 487-505, June.
    3. Janet Music & Lisa Mullins & Sylvain Charlebois & Charlotte Large & Kydra Mayhew, 2022. "Seeds and the city: a review of municipal home food gardening programs in Canada in response to the COVID-19 pandemic," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-12, December.
    4. Ali, Ubaid & Mughal, Mazhar & Ayaz, Muhammad & Ahmed, Junaid, 2024. "Migrant remittances and the adoption of information and communication technology," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    5. Maria Symeonaki & George Filandrianos & Giorgos Stamou, 2022. "Visualising key information and communication technologies (ICT) indicators for children and young individuals in Europe," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-12, December.
    6. H. Holly Wang & Yizhou Hua & Christine Wilson, 2025. "Do college students demand lower tuition for online learning? Empirical evidence from choice experiments during COVID-19," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(2), pages 293-310, March.
    7. Dai Pu & Victoria Palmer & Louise Greenstock & Cathie Pigott & Anna Peeters & Lena Sanci & Michele Callisaya & Colette Browning & Wendy Chapman & Terry Haines, 2023. "Identifying Public Healthcare Priorities in Virtual Care for Older Adults: A Participatory Research Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(5), pages 1-18, February.
    8. Gregory Scott Child & Kim Song, 2023. "Digital Inequities: Promoting Digital Justice during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(17), pages 1-21, August.
    9. Stefanie Stantcheva, 2022. "Inequalities in the times of a pandemic," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 37(109), pages 5-41.
    10. Kaplan, Marcella & Hotle, Susan & Heaslip, Kevin, 2023. "How has COVID-19 impacted customer perceptions and demand for delivery services: An exploratory analysis," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 217-230.
    11. McMahon, Rob & Akçayır, Murat, 2022. "Voices from Northern Canada: Integrating stakeholder expectations in telecommunications policy for rural, remote and Northern regions," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(9).
    12. Stephen Rodriguez-Elliott & Karl Vachuska, 2023. "Measuring the Digital Divide: A Neighborhood-Level Analysis of Racial Inequality in Internet Speed during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Societies, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-11, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. John Lai & Nicole O. Widmar & Courtney Bir, 2020. "Eliciting Consumer Willingness to Pay for Home Internet Service: Closing the Digital Divide in the State of Indiana," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(2), pages 263-282, June.
    2. LoPiccalo, Katherine, 2022. "Impact of broadband penetration on U.S. Farm productivity: A panel approach," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(9).
    3. Chandra S. R. Nuthalapati & Chaitanya Nuthalapati, 2021. "Has Open Innovation Taken Root in India? Evidence from Startups Working in Food Value Chains," Circular Economy and Sustainability, Springer, vol. 1(4), pages 1207-1230, December.
    4. Anil Rupasingha & John Pender & Ryan Williams, 2024. "Broadband and rural development: Impacts of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Broadband Initiatives Program on saving and creating jobs," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(2), pages 698-721, April.
    5. Nan Hao & Mingxing Ji, 2023. "Development of Platform Economy and Urban–Rural Income Gap: Theoretical Deductions and Empirical Analyses," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-25, May.
    6. Ganuza, Juan José & Viecens, María Fernanda, 2011. "Deployment of high-speed broadband infrastructures during the economic crisis. The case of Xarxa Oberta," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(9), pages 857-870.
    7. Xiaolu Wei & Junhu Ruan, 2022. "Influences of Government Policies and Farmers’ Cognition on Farmers’ Participation Willingness and Behaviors in E-Commerce Interest Linkage Mechanisms during Farmer–Enterprise Games," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-16, October.
    8. McCoy,Selina & Lyons,Seán & Coyne,Bryan & Darmody,Merike, 2017. "Teaching and Learning in Second- Level Schools at the Advent of High-Speed Broadband," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS51, December.
    9. Shuaitao Jiao & Qiubi Sun, 2021. "Digital Economic Development and Its Impact on Econimic Growth in China: Research Based on the Prespective of Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-19, September.
    10. Whitacre, Brian & Gallardo, Roberto, 2020. "State broadband policy: Impacts on availability," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(9).
    11. Balaine, Lorraine & Dillon, Emma J. & Läpple, Doris & Lynch, John, 2020. "Can technology help achieve sustainable intensification? Evidence from milk recording on Irish dairy farms," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    12. repec:ags:aaea22:335602 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Elisa Giampietri & Samuele Trestini, 2020. "Analysing farmers' intention to adopt web marketing under a technology-organisation-environment perspective: A case study in Italy," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 66(5), pages 226-233.
    14. Jianxin Guo & Songqing Jin & Lei Chen & Jichun Zhao, 2018. "Impacts of Distance Education on Agricultural Performance and Household Income: Micro-Evidence from Peri-Urban Districts in Beijing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-19, October.
    15. Boyce, Mckenzie, 2024. "Willingness to pay for broadband: A case study of Wisconsin," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(10).
    16. Pender, John & Goldstein, Joshua & Mahoney-Nair, Devika, 2022. "Impacts of the Broadband Initiatives Program on broadband adoption and home telework," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(8).
    17. Gao, Yanyan & Zang, Leizhen & Sun, Jun, 2018. "Does computer penetration increase farmers’ income? An empirical study from China," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(5), pages 345-360.
    18. Correa, Teresa & Pavez, Isabel & Contreras, Javier, 2017. "Beyond access: A relational and resource-based model of household Internet adoption in isolated communities," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(9), pages 757-768.
    19. Thai, Do Manh & Falch, Morten, 2018. "Universal service in Vietnam: An institutional approach," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 323-332.
    20. Qinghua Xin & Baijun Wu & Yaru Shi, 2025. "The Impact of Farmers’ Digital Participation on Cultivated Land Ecological Protection," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(13), pages 1-20, July.
    21. Mack, Elizabeth A. & Maciejewski, Ross, 2015. "A profile of visual analytical toolkits for understanding the spatio-temporal evolution of broadband provision," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 320-332.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:apecpp:v:43:y:2021:i:1:p:458-464. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)2040-5804 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.