Socio-economic determinants of the information society development in the European Union countries

Abstract

The worldwide globalization which we deal with in the 21st century requires an interpersonal communication all over the world. The development level of the information society is one of more important factors of competitiveness of country economy. Therefore for the countries which aspire to high socio-economic development level one of the main goals should be an easy access to the information tools such as mobile network or Internet. In the paper the European Union countries were analyzed. Most of them are considered to be countries of high social and economic development level. However analyses show that there are significant differences among these countries, especially regarding income or labour market characteristics. These differences significantly determine the information society development level. Common economic policy of the European Union countries as well as people migrations implies a permanent need of reliable communication means. To analyze the problem of diversity of the EU member states in respect of information society development level some quantitative tools were applied. Some interdependences between selected socio-economic characteristics and variables concerning the information society development level were indicated. The research hypotheses were positively verified. It was shown that the growth of socio-economic level implies the growth of information society development level. Besides, the analyses showed that the main factor that determined the information society development level in the EU countries was the income per person and that the demographic structure had an inconsiderable impact on the use a mobile or the Internet activity.