How Income Affects Digital Skills and Opportunities

By Dan Munro for Actua

Actua conducted a national survey of young Canadians and their parents to understand their views about coding and digital literacy, their confidence in their coding and digital skills, and whether they feel they have opportunities to develop these skills in and outside of school.

Our first report revealed that students are very enthusiastic, but also that there is a large gap between interest and opportunities to develop coding and digital skills. The analysis also uncovered differences in interest and opportunity across demographic factors, such as gender, age, region, household income and parents’ educational attainment.

In this second briefing on our Coding the Future survey, we take a closer look at the impact of household income on coding and digital technology attitudes and opportunities. The results are discouraging. While young Canadians’ interest in coding and digital literacy is high across all income levels, children from lower-income households are less likely than their peers from higher-income households to say they have opportunities to learn coding and digital skills and access to technology. To ensure that all Canadians are able to participate in and benefit from an increasingly digital economy, additional coding and technology opportunities for children from lower-income households will be needed.

Click here to view the report!