Access to Computer, Internet and Mobile Phone at Home in Finland, Ireland, Netherlands and Sweden

The purpose of this study is to analyse statistically factors that affect individual access to and household ownership of new technology. This paper reviews the literature on the diffusion of new innovations, the use of new technology and relevant consumer theory. Also some descriptive statistics on Finland, Ireland, Netherlands and Sweden are presented. The main contributions are the logit regression analyses conducted with Dutch, Finnish and Swedish data. The Dutch part is just a review of former study by van der Veen (2003). The Finnish analysis is conducted using the Finnish household budget survey 1998. The Swedish analysis is conducted using the survey on individual ICT access and use in 2002. In the analyses conducted the research question is how region, household composition, age, gender, education, income and social position affect the probability of owning or having access to computer, Internet and mobile phone at home. The effects were similar in most respects in all the three countries. It seems that having access to these new technologies is most clearly affected by household type, age and income. The results show that the regional differences in E-access were mostly caused by demographic differences between the regions.