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The
following is an excerpt from the NTIF's second report on Internet
Usage. Click on the highlighted links to access charts. To
link to the full report click here.
Age,
Race, Education and the Internet
Age.
As in 1994, those furthest behind the national average for
telephone penetration are the youngest (under 25 years) at
84.4% (Chart
6). Young households in rural areas are even less likely
to have a telephone (81.7%). Seniors (55 years and older),
by contrast, account for the highest telephone penetration
(96.1%), particularly in rural areas (96.7%). With respect
to computer penetration, as in 1994, seniors account for the
lowest age category (21.0% for PCs, 8.8% for on-line access),
followed by the young (28.0% for PCs,17.1% for on-line access)
(Charts 16,
22).
Those households most likely to own a PC are in the 35-44-year-old
bracket (49%).
Race.
There is still a significant divide among racial groups in
telephone penetration. Overall, White households have a far
higher telephone penetration rate (95.9%) than Black (86%)
or Hispanic (86.5%) households (Chart
4). This divide is particularly pronounced at incomes
below $15,000: 90.3% for Whites, 76.3% for Blacks, and 78.4
% for Hispanics. "Other non-Hispanic" households
have an overall telephone penetration rate (92.7%) close to
the national average (93.8%), but the rate for this group
in rural areas is significantly lower than average (82.8%).(2)
The
divide among races is even more striking for PC ownership
and on-line access. While the ownership of PCs have grown
most significantly for minority groups since 1994, Blacks
and Hispanics still lag far behind the national average (Chart
12). White households are still more than twice as likely
(40.8%) to own a computer than Black (19.3%) or Hispanic (19.4%)
households.(3) This divide is apparent across all income levels:
even at incomes higher than $75,000, Whites are more likely
to have PCs (76.3%) than are Blacks (64.1%) (Chart
13). Similarly, the rates for on-line access are nearly
three times as high for Whites (21.2%) as for Blacks (7.7%)
or Hispanics (8.7%).
Significantly,
the digital divide between racial groups in PC-ownership has
increased since 1994 (Chart
14). In 1997, the difference in PC-ownership levels between
White and Black households was 21.5 percentage points, up
from 16.8 percentage points in 1994. Similarly, the gap in
PC-ownership rates between White and Hispanic households in
1997 has increased to 21.4 percentage points, up from 14.8
percentage points in 1994. This gap has increased at almost
all income levels, including at incomes above $75,000, where
some might have expected computer-ownership rates to converge
(Chart
15).
Education.
The level of education affects the penetration rates much
as income does: generally, the greater one's education, the
greater the likelihood that person has a phone, PC, or modem.
Those with college degrees are far more likely than those
without any high school education to have telephone service
(97.6% vs. 87.8%) (Chart
7). The comparison is even
more striking with respect to PC ownership: those with a college
education are almost ten times as likely to own a computer
as those without any high school (63.2% vs. 6.8%) (Chart
17). This difference in PC-ownership
is even more distinct in rural areas: 64.7% versus 5.3%. Most
striking are the differences in on-line access among those
with a college degree (38.4%), those with a high school diploma
(9.6%), and those without any high school education (1.8%)
(Chart
23).
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