Gender Differences in Information Technology Usage: A U.S.-Japan Comparison
FRB of Atlanta Working Paper No. 2004-2
36 Pages Posted: 27 Feb 2004
Date Written: January 2004
Abstract
This study examines whether there are differences in men's and women's use of computers and the Internet in the United States and Japan and how any such gender gaps have changed over time. The authors focus on these two countries because information technology is widely used in both, but there are substantial differences in institutions and social organizations. They use microdata from several surveys during the 1997-2001 period to examine differences and trends in computer and Internet usage in the two countries. Their results indicate that there were significant gender differences in computer and Internet usage in both countries during the mid-1990s. By 2001, these gender differences had disappeared or were even reversed in the United States but remained in Japan. People not currently working have lower levels of IT use and skills in both countries regardless of gender, but working women in Japan have lower levels of IT use and skills than working men, a difference that generally does not occur in the United States. This finding suggests that employment status per se does not play a large role in the gender gap in Japan, but type of employment does. The prevalence of nonstandard employment among female workers in Japan accounts for much of the gender gap in IT use and skills in that country.
Keywords: Computers, Internet, Gender, Nonstandard Employment
JEL Classification: O33, L86, J16
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Policy Reform, Economic Growth, and the Digital Divide:An Econometric Analysis
By David Wheeler, Susmita Dasgupta, ...
-
Telecommunication Reforms, Access Regulation, and Internet Adoption in Latin America
By Antonio Estache, Marco Manacorda, ...
-
Broadband Access and Content Consumption
By Lorin M. Hitt and Prasanna Tambe
-
ICT Use in the Developing World: An Analysis of Differences in Computer and Internet Penetration
-
ICT Use in the Developing World: An Analysis of Differences in Computer and Internet Penetration
-
ICT Use in the Developing World: An Analysis of Differences in Computer and Internet Penetration