The Digital Divide in Romania – A Statistical Analysis

The digital divide is a subject of major importance in the current economic circumstances in which Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are seen as a significant determinant of increasing the domestic competitiveness and contribute to better life quality. Latest international reports regarding various aspects of ICT usage in modern society reveal a decrease of overall digital disparity towards the average trends of the worldwide ITC’s sector – this relates to latest advances of mobile and computer penetration rates, both for personal use and for households/ business. In Romania, the low starting point in the development of economy and society in the ICT direction was, in some extent, compensated by the rapid annual growth of the last decade. Even with these dynamic developments, the statistical data still indicate poor positions in European Union hierarchy; in this respect, the prospects of a rapid recovery of the low performance of the Romanian ICT endowment and usage and the issue continue to be regarded as a challenge for progress in economic and societal terms. The paper presents several methods for assessing the current state of ICT related aspects in terms of Internet usage based on the latest data provided by international databases. The current position of Romanian economy is judged according to several economy using statistical methods based on variability measurements: the descriptive statistics indicators, static measures of disparities and distance metrics.