Access and use of Technology

Young people across the region report handling digital devices with great ease is a key skill for labor market insertion in an increasingly competitive job market (on average, they report a level of 80 when it comes to approving the importance of being able to handle digital devices on a scale of 0 to 100) (Rucci 2018, 33).

Broadband access, households with Internet access and personal computer

Mobile broadband penetration in Latin American countries is high, with the exception of Haiti. The median for this indicator is 86.4%.

However, the percentage of households with Internet access varies much more. For this indicator, the maximum is 87.5% in Chile and the minimum is 7% in Haiti. The median for this indicator is 35.9%. This indicates that, while a high percentage of the population in each country has access to mobile broadband, home internet access is not as common in certain countries.

A similar situation occurs with the percentage of households that have a personal computer. This number varies from 68.2 in Uruguay to 11% in Haiti. The median, in this case, is 37.2%. In the case of personal computers, as with access to the Internet from their homes, the difference between countries, in which Forge works and those in which it does not, is notable.

Use of technology

The digital gap is exacerbated by the fact that Internet use in most Latin American households that have adopted the Internet is limited to communication tools and social networks. A composite household digital resilience index (calculated on the use of the internet to download health and educational apps, perform e-commerce transactions and use fintech) shows that the Latin American weighted average is 30.70 (on a scale of 1 to 100) while OECD countries reach 53.78. The difference between countries within the region is of great magnitude: on one side, we find Chile with an index of 41.78, and at the other extreme, Bolivia with 6.23. In other words, Internet penetration per se does not indicate a high degree of digital resilience of Latin American households (Katz 2020, 4)

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