A measure of rural-urban digital divide in China

This paper measures China's rural-urban digital divide (RUDD) through designing an index system which, based on AHP, covers four layers, with all indicators amounting to 12. Two-step arithmetic average is employed to calculate the index for the gap during the period from 2004 to 2008.We find that the divide is serious in China as a whole, being the most severe in the west region while the slightest in the east region. The divide in network awareness, network access, and network external environment is the largest in eastern China whereas smallest in west. Moreover, the gap of network utilization between urban and rural in western region is the worst whilst least in the central region. We also discover that the rural-urban digital divide in China was moderating gradually during this phase. And the eastern region bridges the gap more quickly than the central counterpart and the western region is the slowest. Furthermore, we suggest that proper policies should be made by the government to serve overcoming of the problem of the divide, such as stepping up rural economic development.