Open AccessExploring the impacts of Internet access on poverty: A regional analysis of rural Mexico
Author(s) -
Fernando GarcíaMora,
Jorge MoraRivera
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
new media and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.501
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1461-7315
pISSN - 1461-4448
DOI - 10.1177/14614448211000650
Subject(s) - poverty , the internet , internet access , rural area , sample (material) , economic growth , development economics , business , geography , socioeconomics , economics , political science , chemistry , chromatography , world wide web , computer science , law
The purpose of this article is to estimate the impact of Internet access on poverty for a sample of people living in contrasting regions located across rural Mexico. Using a quasi-experimental technique, our results suggest that Internet access is an additional mechanism that contributes to decreasing poverty levels. Consequently, it could assist in increasing the proportion of people living out of poverty in rural areas; however, this is not uniform across regions (higher positive effects are estimated for less developed regions). These findings highlight the prevailing regional heterogeneity in Mexico’s rural sector and suggest that governments must design better-targeted public policies that address the uneven development in Internet diffusion typical of the rural sector. These policy improvements would allow governments to maximize the potential benefits of the Internet, as this technology alone is not sufficient to break the cycle of poverty in middle-income countries like Mexico.