EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Digital Divide or Digital Provide? Technology, Time Use, and Learning Loss during COVID-19

M Asadullah and Anindita Bhattacharjee

Journal of Development Studies, 2022, vol. 58, issue 10, 1934-1957

Abstract: COVID-19 school closure has caused a worldwide shift towards technology-aided home schooling. Given widespread poverty in developing countries, this has raised concerns over new forms of learning inequalities. Using nationwide data on primary and secondary school children in slum and rural households in Bangladesh, we examine how learning time at home during the early months of school closure varies by access to technology at home. Data confirms a significant socio-economic and gender divide in access to TV, smartphone, computer, and internet among rural households. However, the analysis of daily time use data shows only a modest return to a technology in terms of boosting learning time at home. The learning-grade gradient is shallow and insensitive to TV, smartphone, and computer access at home. We also find no evidence that technology access per se helps learning by boosting time spent in online schooling and private supplementary coaching/tutoring. While technology access matters in households where parents act as home tutors, the magnitude of such a complementary effect are not large. The results imply a loss of out-of-school learning time during school closure even in households with technology access. We consider additional hypotheses relating to institutional and socio-economic barriers to home-based learning in developing countries.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00220388.2022.2094253 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Digital Divide or Digital Provide? Technology, Time Use and Learning Loss during COVID-19 (2022) Downloads
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:58:y:2022:i:10:p:1934-1957

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/FJDS20

DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2022.2094253

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Development Studies is currently edited by Howard White, Oliver Morrissey and Ken Shadlen

More articles in Journal of Development Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-20
Handle: RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:58:y:2022:i:10:p:1934-1957