Digital Inequality Among States at an European Level

For the past twenty-five years, digital inequalities have been analyzed by several scholars. Many empirical studies have shaped a theoretical framework that identifies three main digital divides. However, most of the scientific contributions have been focusing on digital inequalities within countries, leaving inequalities among countries behind. This paper aims at analyzing what kind of digital inequalities emerge among European countries, focusing on the trends that characterized Europe in the last decade, to consider whether some of the main elements of the digital divide literature replicate at the continental level. The paper analyzes secondary data, mainly retrieved from Eurostat. It emerges that inequalities in digital skills and use of the Web persist in Europe, and some of the trends that scholars found among individuals are identifiable among countries as well. These findings contribute to the description of digital inequalities, a social phenomenon not so deeply studied at the continental level.