Methodological issues in measuring international inequality in technology ownership and infrastructure service use

Abstract

Access to technologies, infrastructures and their related services are essential for raising global living standards and human well-being. Several of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) deal with providing access to technologies and service infrastructures to the share of global population so far excluded. At the same time, the SDGs, foremost SDG 10 on reducing inequalities within and among countries, promote a more equitable world, both in terms of inter-as well as intra-national equality. To support monitoring progress towards the SDGs, this paper aims to (1) improve measures of international inequality in terms of basic technologies and infrastructure services associated with the SDGs by explicitly taking into account non-access; and (2) to estimate the international inequality of selected SDG technologies and infrastructure services. It does so by advancing, testing, and applying improved measures of international inequality. The paper shows the discrepancies between accounting and not accounting for nonaccess from an inequality perspective for international inequality for selected technologies (e.g. mobile phones) and infrastructure services (e.g. electricity). By accounting for non-access on the national level, international inequality estimates are improved. Accounting for non-access leads to changes in country rankings, which the development community uses to measure progress in human development.

Digitalization and the Anthropocene

“…There are further equity considerations on the consumption side of digital products. The mobile phone is already one of the most equitably accessible technologies globally, with a Gini coefficient of 0.20 (where 0 is perfect equality and 1 is perfect inequality), compared with the Gini coefficients for GDP (0.43), TVs (0.49), electricity (0.50), cars (0.65), and the internet (0.66) (78). Mobile phones as end-user ICTs provide access to information, networks, education, financial services, and expertise that support livelihoods, social relationships, and basic need fulfillment.…”

The inequality of electricity consumption in Colombia. Projections and implications

“…In general, while economic growth and industrialization advance human development, current policies must be improved to promote the positive effects of these determinants [94]. The Colombian electric Gini of 0.51 is comparable to the global electric Gini of 0.503 from 2014 [96]. However, contrasted to the electric Gini of developed countries like Canada with 0.10 [29] or the United States with 0.23 [65], inequity is higher in Colombia.…”

Technological and Societal Changes and Their Impacts on Resource Production and Use

“…For instance the rapid diffusion of mobile phones to currently over 8 billion devices worldwide (more than the global population), have resulted in almost equal access to this communication technology. Mobile phones are now the technology that is most equitably distributed across all consumers on the planet, even more equitably than TVs or radios [12]. About half of mobile phones already are smartphones, which are also becoming increasingly adopted by older generations as well beyond their almost universal adoption among the young.…”