Inequalities of Indonesia's regional digital development and its association with socioeconomic characteristics: a spatial and multivariate analysis

Drawing on multivariate, spatial agglomeration, cluster analysis, and the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression, this paper aims to reveal the spatial inequalities in the digital development of households and individuals at 460 districts/cities in Indonesia and its association with socioeconomic characteristics. The results show a significant district digital divide characterized by a decline of regional digital development index (RDDI) values from the west to the east and from core cities to more peripheral ones. Cities with high RDDI values are mainly concentrated in large metropolitan areas in western Indonesia, whereas districts with low values tend to concentrate in rural-mountainous regions, remote areas, and archipelagos in eastern Indonesia. However, the digital divide declined from 2015 to 2019, indicating that Indonesian regions are becoming more digitally convergent. Education, gross regional domestic product (GRDP) per capita, population, and the number of formal workers have a positive and significant impact on RDDI.