Bridging or Deepening the Gap? Interaction Effects of Education and Disability on Digital Inclusion

Cheng-Hsuan Tsai
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Cheng-Hsuan Tsai: Graduate Institute of Public Affairs, National Taiwan University, Taiwan

Politics and Governance, 2026, vol. 14

Abstract: The digital divide remains a critical challenge, as unequal access to technology reinforces existing social inequalities. Although education is a well-established factor in promoting digital inclusion, closing the gap requires a comprehensive examination of the interplay between education and other factors. Drawing on the social model of disability, this study examines whether the digital access gap between persons with and without disabilities widens at higher educational levels. This study evaluates digital disparities across four stages of digital access (mental, material, skills, and usage access) using Taiwan’s Digital Access Survey from 2020, 2022, 2023, and 2024. Multiple logistic regression models are employed to examine the interaction between education and disability status. The findings show that higher education is associated with more positive attitudes toward technology, greater internet adoption, stronger digital skills, and higher engagement in online activities such as financial and government services. However, these benefits are generally less pronounced for persons with disabilities. In contrast, more fundamental domains, such as social and healthcare usage, show more comparable patterns across people with and without disabilities. These results suggest that digital inequality is not uniform across different dimensions of digital access and may be shaped by inaccessible environments and structural inequalities embedded within digital and social systems. As such, merely raising overall educational levels may be insufficient to bridge the digital divide and may even allow inequalities to persist beneath the appearance of educational equality. Digital inclusion policies should therefore pay greater attention to the structural conditions that continue to marginalize persons with disabilities.

Keywords: digital inclusion; disability; education; social model of disability; structural barriers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:poango:v14:y:2026:a:12202

DOI: 10.17645/pag.12202

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