It may turn out that the "digital divide"--one of the most fashionable political slogans of recent years--is largely fiction. As you will recall, the argument went well beyond the unsurprising notion that the rich would own more computers than the poor. The disturbing part of the theory was that society was dividing itself into groups of technology "haves" and "have-nots" and that this segregation would, in turn, worsen already large economic inequalities. It’s this argument that’s either untrue or wildly exaggerated.
We should always have been suspicious. After all, computers have spread quickly because they’ve become cheaper to buy and more user-friendly. Falling prices and skill requirements suggest that the digital divide would spontaneously shrink--and so it has.
The U.S. Census Bureau’s latest survey of computer use reports narrowing gaps among different income and ethnic groups. In 1997, only 37% of Americans in families with incomes from $15,000 to $24,999 used computers. By September 2001, that proportion was 47%. Usage among families with incomes exceeding $75,000 rose more modestly, from 81% to 88%. Among all racial and ethnic groups, computer use is rising. Here are the numbers for 2001 compared with similar rates for 1997.
The new figures confirm common sense: many computer skills aren’t especially high-tech or demanding. Now, a new study further discredits the digital divide. The study, by economists David Card of the University of California, Berkeley, and John DiNardo of the University of Michigan, challenges the notion that computers have significantly worsened wage inequality. The logic of how this supposedly happens is straightforward: computers raise the demand for high-skilled workers, increasing their wages. Meanwhile, computerization reduces the demand for low-skilled workers and, thereby, their wages. The gap between the two widens.
Superficially, wage statistics support the theory. Consider the ratio between workers near the top of the wage distribution (at the 90th percentile ) and those near the bottom (at the 10th percentile). In 1999, the first earned $26.05 an hour and the second $6.05 an hour, reports the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. The ratio of the two--workers at the top compared with workers at the bottom--was 4.3 to 1. By contrast, the ratio in 1980 was only 3.7 to 1. Computerization increased; so did the wage gap.
But wait, say Card and DiNardo. The trouble with blaming computers is that the worsening of inequality occurred primarily in the early 1980s. With computer use growing, the wage gap should have continued to expand, if it was being driven by a shifting demand for skills. Indeed, Card and DiNardo find much detailed evidence that contradicts the theory. They conclude that computerization doesn’t explain "the rise in U.S. wage inequality in the last quarter of the 20th century".
In the eyes of the author, digital divide ______.